At the Georgia Foreign Trade Conference in teh US on 4 February, Griff Lynch, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), announced the acquisition of 145 contiguous acres to the Port of Savannah, or more than 1 million TEU in annual capacity.
During his presentation, Lynch also announced that Garden City Terminal dock construction had been completed, and can now serve three 14,000 TEU vessels, and up to eight vessels simultaneously.
The improved dock and additional container yard space are part of a larger blueprint to increase the GPA’s capacity to more than 9 million TEU by 2030. The GPA will add an additional berth, for a total of four big ship vessel slots by 2023.
“The expansion at our deepwater ports in both Savannah and Brunswick is helping to fuel growth, and in turn investment, jobs and increased competitiveness on the global stage,” said GPA Board Chairman Will McKnight.
In order to improve service, Savannah’s Ocean Terminal will be partially converted to handle containers. Renovations at Ocean Terminal, located just downriver from the main container port, will include a new truck gate, upgraded container yards and rubber-tired gantry cranes for container operations.
Construction is currently under way on the upgrades. Phase I of the Ocean Terminal container yard is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.
Lynch also outlined plans for the new Savannah Container Terminal, a nearly 200-acre facility to be built on Hutchinson Island. The new facility will have a capacity of 2.5 million TEU when fully developed. Phase I is projected to come online in 2025.
