Savannah containers up 11.4% in first-half FY2025

The Georgia Ports Authority said it handled more than 2.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units in the July-December fiscal year period, an increase of 11.4% or nearly 300,000 TEUs, year on year in the Port of Savannah.  

December volume grew 4.7% to more than 442,000 TEUs from December 2023.

“We’ve seen 12 consecutive months of year-over-year container volume growth and we’re on track for a strong fiscal year that ends June 30, 2025,” said Griff Lynch, president and CEO of Georgia Ports Authority, in a release.

Resilient spending by consumers and sustained frontloading by importers wary of port labor issues and proposed tariffs helped drive steady container traffic at U.S. ports through the end of 2024.

The Appalachian Regional Port (ARP) in Crandall, Ga., saw volume increase 13.5% or 4,368 TEUs fiscal year to date. December volumes were 6,084 TEUs, up 20.6% y/y.

Elsewhere, Lynch said the Garden City West Terminal storage yard will see its cars-in-containers project come to completion in February as cargo is shifted to ro-ro service in the Port of Brunswick.

In other port and project news:

• Four new ship-to-shore cranes from Konecranes of Finland arrived in January for installation.
• The Blue Ridge Connector inland port project in Gainesville, Georgia, is 50% complete and is on schedule to open in 2026. It will be served by Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC).
• A GPA-financed $40 million expanded U.S. customs inspection facility that doubled in size opens in March to support faster service within Garden City Terminal. 
• The Savannah Container Terminal project is currently in the permit process.

The Port of Brunswick handled 443,763 units of ro-ro cargo, up 7.5% or 31,125 units fiscal year to date. December saw 69,000 ro-ro units, a decrease of 7%, to 5,200 units. The numbers reflect total ro-ro at Colonel’s Island, including autos, machinery, static cargo, boats and vehicles.

The GPA said it completed $262 million in improvements at Brunswick in 2024, adding new warehousing and processing space, and 122 acres of ro-ro cargo storage. Construction has started on a new rail yard on Colonel’s Island, while a fourth ro-ro berth is in the engineering phase.

Colonel’s Island also welcomed the official opening of ro-ro carrier Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s new southeast U.S. port hub this past January. The move consolidates the Oslo-based carrier’s (OTC: WILWY) southeast U.S. operations from an 85-acre Equipment Processing Center site in Pooler, Ga., and port calls at Ocean Terminal, Savannah, to the new, customized 300-acre Brunswick facility. The site includes an Equipment Processing Center (EPC) on-site for heavy equipment export and import. Brunswick can accommodate all the vessels in the Wallenius Wilhelmsen fleet, including the 9,300 car equivalent unit (CEU) methanol dual-fuel Shaper-class pure car and truck carrier (PCTC), and the Tirranna wind-propulsion vessel. 

Wallenius Wilhelmsen employs 518 people in Georgia and 3,713 in the United States.  
Also under GPA developments, the Mayor’s Point terminal in Brunswick handled 22.500 tons in December, up 33.8%, and 164,700 tons fiscal year to date, up 61.4% y/y.

Bulk cargo at the East River Terminal & Lanier Dock soared more than 189% in December, and bulk cargo gained 44.9% to 793,500 tons, on increased exports of wood pellets and peanut pellets.

This article was updated Feb. 7 to include details about Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s Brunswick ro-ro terminal.

Find more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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