VPA eyes Richmond port, barge expansion
The state of Virginia wants to integrate the city-owned Port of Richmond with the state-operated port in Hampton Roads and expand an existing tug-barge container service on the James River to increase intermodal efficiency, Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton said Tuesday.
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'We're proposing a partnership that we can take that port over and actually turn it into a distribution facility,' he said during an informal roundtable meeting on Capitol Hill organized by Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., to discuss challenges facing the maritime industry.
Gov. Bob McDonnell's administration envisions an inland port in Richmond fed by barge modeled on the Virginia Port Authority's existing intermodal facility in Front Royal, Va., which enables import and export containers to be exchanged to rail without trucks having to travel all the way to the waterfront in Norfolk and Portsmouth, Connaughton said.
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State officials want to add infrastructure in Richmond to support increased truck-barge and rail-barge transfers because of the port is centrally located more than 100 miles inland, is adjacent to Interstate 95, and has direct rail service provided by CSX Transportation.
Unifying Richmond under the Virginia Port Authority essentially would be equivalent to moving containers between terminals in the same port and fits the state's strategy to operate more efficiently by controlling all port facilities within its jurisdiction. Earlier this month, the VPA reached a tentative agreement to lease the privately held APM Terminal in Portsmouth for 20 years.
The weekly short sea barge service is operated by James River Barge Line, a subsidiary of Norfolk Tug Co. The service transports about 100 to 160 containers per week, or 6,000 to 7,000 containers per year since it launched in December 2008. Most of the volume is headed east for export, with a significant amount of return volume traveling as empty containers.
The barge service, which started slowly in the midst of the recession, is almost at capacity now, David McNeel, executive director for the Port of Richmond, said in a telephone interview. The port is talking with two chemical companies about using the '64 Express' barge service for export loads, which would increase volumes by 30 percent by the end of the summer, he said.
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Connaughton, who was a strong advocate of the marine highway concept during his previous tenure as head of the U.S. Maritime Administration, said the state is about to commit money to triple the barge's service frequency. The public benefits of intercepting trucks far from the seaport include reduced air pollution, fuel consumption, road wear and truck traffic on I-64, as well as increased economic development opportunities around Richmond, he said. Congestion relief has taken on added importance because Virginia is still several years away from widening I-64.
'With the barge service, we're dropping it (the cargo) right there on I-95, where it can be put on truck or rail. So we've moving it around the bottlenecks' in and out of Hampton Roads, he said.
Virginia subsidizes the barge service by providing more than $200,000 per year to cover the cost differential with trucks. Barge service is more expensive because it involves extra handling to transfer containers from one mode to the other.
McNeel said officials are trying to boost container-on-barge volumes to the point where they can cover expenses on both ends without public support.
State DOT officials are scheduled to meet with the Virginia Port Authority and the barge operator on Thursday to discuss possible expansion.
Connaughton said his department also wants to use the same barge service to run containers between Norfolk and Portsmouth and divert trucks out of the mid-town tunnel that connects the cities on opposite banks of the Elizabeth River. The Commonwealth Transportation Board recently authorized the DOT to finalize a $1.9 billion deal with a private group that would finance, build and operate a parallel tunnel, as well as rehabilitate the existing downtown tunnel and build a direct connection to I-264 on the Portsmouth side of the tunnel. The private partner, Elizabeth River Crossings LLC, is a joint venture of Australian investment bank Macquarie and Danish construction firm Skansa.
The plan, he told AmericanShipper.com afterwards, is for the tug to discharge export containers from Richmond at a container terminal in Hampton Roads, then shuttle containers across the river, before picking up import containers for the return trip to Richmond.
McNeel said the VPA — with its extensive staff, commercial contacts and expertise operating a major international port — could help Richmond with infrastructure improvements, marketing, and information technology, but cautioned that the sides have only agreed to discuss how to work together more closely. An initial meeting to flesh out details of the inland port concept has yet to take place.
His comments leaned more towards developing a partnership than a potential port consolidation.
Mica convened the roundtable to broker ideas on how to solve problems faced by shippers with vessel and equipment shortages, and infrastructure capacity. As the ranking minority member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, he is not able to schedule formal hearings on his own. ' Eric Kulisch