Port of Philadelphia on Its Way to Double Container Capacity

An investment of over USD 300 million, which will be injected in the infrastructure of Pennsylvania’s Port of Philadelphia, is set to double the port’s container capacity by 2020.

The comprehensive Capital Investment Program, scheduled to start next year and continue through 2020, will boost three of the busiest sectors of the Port of Philadelphia, including the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, the port’s automobile-handling operation, and the Tioga Marine Terminal.

These improvements will result in doubling container capacity at the port, provide increased breakbulk (non-containerized) cargo capacity, and bring a substantial increase in automobile-handling capacity.

About USD 200 million will be invested in the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, the Port of Philadelphia’s largest maritime facility. Four new electric post-Panamax container cranes will be added at the site, while other improvement will include the relocation of warehouses to facilitate container growth and the construction of new ones, and a deeper 45-foot depth at the terminal’s marginal berths, to match the new 45-foot depth of the Delaware River’s main channel. Electrification throughout the terminal will also be modernized to support electrification of existing diesel cranes and cold ironing capabilities at the terminal.

Officials of the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA) expect that these improvements will result in no less than a doubling of the cargo-handling capacity at the terminal. Container-handling capacity will especially increase, with a 900,000 TEU capacity immediately resulting from the improvements, scalable to exceed 1.2 million TEU capacity in the future, a significant improvement over the terminal’s current 400,000-plus TEU capacity.

“These capital improvements, which we’ll complement with our own additional improvements, will allow us to serve the world’s ocean carriers, and the customers those carriers serve, better than ever before,” said Tom Holt, Jr. of Holt Logistics, the parent company of Greenwich Terminals, LLC, which operates Packer Avenue Marine Terminal.

The Port’s Automobile Import/Export facility, which currently processes 150,000 cars will also benefit by receiving about USD 90 million of the investment program, while USD 12 million has been earmarked for improvements to the Tioga Marine Terminal.