The Port of Savannah has received more than half a billion dollars to grow its container and ro-ro capacity and provide options to importers and exporters to relieve pressure on the South Atlantic Chassis Pool.

The Port of Savannah will compete dredging work within a couple weeks to deepen its harbor to 47 feet and expand storage capacity by 2.7 million TEU by 2024, the Georgia Ports Authority said Thursday.

The Georgia Ports Authority will extend the use of pop-up storage sites another three months through April, citing the success of the off-site locations in whittling down the vessel backlog in Savannah.

Several Southeast ports will expand container capacity in 2022, but the question for most is when will Savannah clear all the anchored vessels outside its harbor?

The number of vessels anchored outside Savannah has fallen to fewer than five, a significant improvement from September when the number was as high as 30.

Although there are still more than 20 vessels anchored outside of Savannah, the Georgia Ports Authority said terminal fluidity has greatly improved compared with two months ago.

Three ocean carriers have decided to temporarily switch US calls to Charleston instead of Savannah as more than 20 vessels are anchored off the Georgia port.

With containers sitting in Savannah’s Garden City terminal longer and the number of vessels anchored outside the port in the double digits, the Georgia Ports Authority is urging importers to pick up their container faster and use intermodal rail to help vacate a growing backlog of boxes.

Port officials in Savannah, Jacksonville, and Wilmington, North Carolina, have signed a deal to maintain the South Atlantic Chassis Pool through 2028 on the condition the pool will grow and chassis quality will significantly improve.

Although the Port of Charleston will be leaving the regional chassis pool in the Southeast, port officials in Savannah, Georgia; Jacksonville, Florida; and Wilmington, North Carolina, remain optimistic that they can upgrade the fleet with safer, modern equipment.

Volume has jumped more than 20 percent for three consecutive months in Savannah, which has slowed the supply chain for some shippers but not nearly as much as in Southern California.

A&R Logistics opened a resin packaging plant in Georgia last week more than a month ahead of schedule, and along with its new South Carolina facility will contribute a combined 100,000 TEU of new volume at the ports of Charleston and Savannah annually.

Container volume in Savannah set a new monthly record in August, a result port officials didn’t anticipate but attribute to US consumer demand for online shopping and home improvement goods.

With phase 1 of the Georgia International Trade Park now complete and a new headquarters for Port City Logistics being built a few miles from the trade park, the Savannah area is adding new warehousing and distribution capacity at a time when space is especially tight.

While container volumes in Savannah were down a better-than-feared 6.7 percent last month, the Georgia Ports Authority is pessimistic about May and June.

The Federal Maritime Commission will engage stakeholders on how it can maintain cargo fluidity in the supply chain during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in a bid to avoid disruption.