Shrewd asset management gives Virginia the upper hand

The lease agreement gives VPA management of all aspects of the operation of the APMT Virginia marine terminal for the next 20 years. However, the asset ownership is unchanged.

Jerry Bridges, VPA’s executive director, said: “All the major cargo operations in the harbour are going to be operated by the VPA and this creates an unparalleled set of opportunities for us. We can now market ourselves as one port with diversified cargo handling capabilities… whether the customer is moving containers, bulk or breakbulk commodities or rolling stock.”

Joe Harris of the VPA explained that several strategic cargo-driven transportation projects will be increasing container volumes at the port cluster during the next decade. There is Norfolk Southern’s (NS) Heartland Corridor double-stack rail link to Columbus and Chicago that opens in September; with the National Gateway, another double stack line, to follow in a few years.

“Further, we already have over 15m depth, as well as the on-dock facility for transport links – and just as importantly, we can take on increased volumes of up to 1m teu right now. So if the Panama Canal opened tomorrow, we’d still be ready.”

Mr Harris pointed out that Virginia, while being fairly small in itself, is within a day’s drive of most of the US population in the northern and western markets (Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York and New Jersey) while the coming lines hold a lot more promise, including reaching the deep South.

The VPA also has an option on 130 acres of undeveloped land.