North Carolina seeing strong container growth
North Carolina ports have seen business in the first quarter of the current fiscal year outperforming budget forecasts, following a strong fiscal year in which container traffic grew 17 percent and general cargo rose 6 percent, said Thomas J. Eagar, chief executive officer of the North Carolina State Ports Authority.
Eagar, in his annual State of the Ports address to the North Carolina World Trade Association, said the state’s two ports in Wilmington and Morehead City “continued to build on robust growth that began in 2004, even as the rate of growth was tempered by the slowdown in U.S. housing and other changes in the market.”
At the Port of Wilmington, he said the first phase of the container terminal expansion was completed and four new 100-foot gauge container cranes went into service.
“The new cranes, along with nine new container handlers and the 42-foot deep Cape Fear River navigation channel, signaled that the Port of Wilmington was ready to accommodate the largest container ships capable of transiting the Panama Canal,” he said.
He noted the CKYH Alliance — comprising China-based COSCO, Korea-based Hanjin, Japan-based 'K' Line and Taiwan-based Yangming — has added larger ships into the rotation of its South China service and added a second weekly service, linking North China directly with North Carolina over Wilmington.
At the Port of Morehead City, a new 177,000-square-foot warehouse opened this month, and new rail has been installed on the port and in the switchyard, and road crossings upgraded.
Eagar also spoke about two long-term projects.
He said initial permitting and design for the Radio Island terminal in Morehead City has been competed, and the authority “is evaluating proposals from potential private-sector partners.”
He also said a pro forma business plan for the proposed North Carolina International Port, 19 miles down river from Wilmington, is being developed and that the authority is working actively with the state’s congressional delegation to obtain funding for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Reconnaissance Study for the port.
(For more about the ports of North Carolina see 'Angling for bigger fish,' October American Shipper, pages 32-35.)