Port of Savannah

In 2017, US imports of household goods jumped as home projects and construction soared on economic strength, and the outlook calls for continued growth in 2018.

US Southeast ports are expanding inland, giving beneficial cargo owners in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and other areas an intermodal opportunity to avoid the long, expensive dray to a port city — a significant option in a capacity-short US truck transport market.

If the partnership between the ports of Virginia and Georgia works as port officials hope, shippers will see a smoother, more efficient process for moving cargo through the ports, potentially boosting the incentive to use them, rather than others, along the coast.

The due date remains January 2022, but that could be delayed if the federal government does not provide the entire $100 million Georgia officials have sought.

Channel-deepening projects at the ports of Savannah and Corpus Christi are included in the Trump administration’s US Army Corps of Engineers budget request; Congress has the final say regarding funding. Georgia's governor argued the Savannah project is the Southeast's most important infrastructure project.

“We are looking at everything [in terms of expanding the physical acreage of the port]. We’re not going to stop just because this is our current fence line,” GPA executive director Griff Lynch said Monday.

APL was No. 13 on the trans-Atlantic trade in the first three quarters.

The move is in response to signs that carriers are moving away from providing gensets.

Since mid-2016, when PortFresh Logistics opened a 100,000-square-foot cold-treatment facility, chilled imports through the port have surged nearly 300 percent.

Hurricane Irma’s arrival this weekend threatens to roil US supply chains and seriously impact trucking rates.

The offering starts Aug. 27 and lasts eight weeks.

It’s the latest of several packaging operations springing up around US ports and inland point.

Roughly $4.6 billion is needed at East and Gulf coast ports to remedy pinch points in harbor infrastructure.

“Yes, there is more money needed for it, but if we’re truly looking for projects that will have a meaningful payback to the nation, this is the project.”

A federal judge on Friday gave the go-ahead to Maher Terminals at the Port of New York and New Jersey and the Georgia Ports Authority to dispose of Hanjin Shipping containers.

When competition spurs investment, shippers stand to benefit regardless of their port preference. A variety of factors — harbor depths, ocean services, on- and near-dock intermodal facilities, rail lift capacity, and inland reach — will determine where shippers will funnel Asia imports heading to Chicago and the Ohio Valley sweet spot farther east.