Peter T. Leach, Senior Editor | Aug 15, 2012 4:43PM EDT
The volume of containers handled by terminals in the Port of Virginia in July increased 7.4 percent from June and by 8 percent over the same month last year.
The port’s Portsmouth and Norfolk container terminals handled 180,384 20-foot-equvalent units in July, compared to 168,430 TEUs in June. That brought year-to-date throughput to 1,175,111 TEUs, an increase of 5.8 percent over the 1,110,983 TEUs handled during the same period last year.
“This past July was our best July ever on record for us, just as this past June and May were the best of those months, historically speaking,” said Virginia Port Authority Executive Director Jerry A. Bridges. “We saw increase in rail moves, barge moves, ship calls and containers handled at the Virginia Inland Port.”
Total rail containers handled in July were 32,941, a 22.5 percent increase when compared with last July. The year-to-date rail containers total is 212,689, up 13.8 percent for the same period last year.
The number of containers moved between the Port of Richmond and the Hampton Roads Harbor on the 64 Express barge service in July was 401, up 30.6 percent year-over-year. For the year-to-date barge service moved 5,198 containers, a 95.8 percent increase over the 2,655 containers during the same period in 2011.
In July there were 173 ship calls, an increase of 10.9 percent from the 156 a year earlier. The year-to-date ship calls totaled 1,138, up 8.3 percent from 1,051 last year.
The Virginia Inland Port at Front Royal saw a 17.6 percent increase in the number of containers it handled in July, compared with the same month last year: 2,328 vs. 1,979. Year-to-date, VIP throughput is running about 1 percent ahead of last year.
July’s breakbulk total was 24,377 tons, a 23.7 percent decrease year-over-year. But for the year to date, breakbulk tonnage increased 5.6 percent to 212,698 tons from 186,900 in the same period last year.
Contact Peter T. Leach at pleach@joc.com.
