Virginia to operate Port of Richmond
The city-owned Port of Richmond on Virginia's James River will come under the control of the state on July 1 after the Virginia Port Authority's Board of Commissioners unanimously approved on Tuesday a five-year lease agreement to run the facility.
VPA plans to drive more traffic to the near-empty port by supporting more container-on-barge services to and from its marine terminals that serve oceangoing vessels in the Port of Norfolk. State officials want to utilize the short-sea shipping mode to replace trucks and reduce congestion and emissions on Interstate 64.
As first reported by American Shipper, VPA will retain Port Contractors Inc. as the terminal operating company in Richmond and pay the city $75,000 per year. The lease includes a renewal option.
VPA subsidizes a weekly barge service that moves about 200 shipping boxes between Richmond and the Hampton Roads area, located about 100 miles to the west. Port authority officials said they believe the service can be expanded to twice per week, possibly starting in mid-August.
'An expanded barge service has drawn interest from customers that move overweight cargo or cargo that is not time-sensitive,' said J.J. Keever, VPA's senior deputy executive director, in a statement. 'Bringing the Port of Richmond aboard gives us the opportunity to try some innovative things with the barge that we think will attract interest from shippers and private investment that seeks to capitalize on the Port of Richmond given its proximity to I-95 and its water link to Hampton Roads.'
Officials previously expressed interest in eventually tripling the frequency of the container barge.
Hampton Roads is the tri-city area that includes Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News. I-95 is the major north-south corridor on the East Coast.
VPA approached the city of Richmond about taking over its struggling port about a year ago. The original offer was for $1 per year, in addition to assuming all the risk for building business, investing in infrastructure and employing technology to improve efficiency.
The move unifies all the port terminals in the state under a single umbrella. Last year, VPA signed a 20-year concession to operate the new container terminal in Portsmouth owned by APM Terminals. VPA also operates a rail-truck intermodal facility in Front Royal, Va., about 200 miles from the port.
Having direct operational control of all the terminals instead of co-existing with independent terminal operators allows the port to better manage its assets and coordinate cargo handling for vessels, officials say.
Most U.S. ports operate as landlords for private terminal operators.
Virginia International Terminals is VPA's non-profit company that operates the terminals. Richmond will be the exception to that structure, with PCI responsible for loading, unloading and storing cargo.
PCI uses labor represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and switching over to Virginia International Terminals, which uses International Longshoremen's Association labor, could have been difficult, spokesman Joe Harris said. ' Eric Kulisch
