April 2018 was the busiest month in the Georgia Ports Authority’s history. Twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEU) increased 8.8 percent compared to the first 10 months of fiscal year 2017.
Fiscal year-to-date totals saw more than 3.4 million TEUs moved by the port. During April, volume grew 7.1 percent, reaching 356,700 TEUs.
“We’re on track to move more than 300,000 TEUs in every month of the fiscal year, which will be a first for the authority,” Griff Lynch, GPA executive director, said. “We’re also anticipating this to be the first fiscal year for the Port of Savannah to handle more than 4 million TEUs.”
The Port of Savannah is the fastest-growing container port in the United States. For the past decade, it has had a compound annual growth rate of more than 5 percent annually.
The ports authority has approved $66 million to upgrade terminals at the Port of Savannah. This includes $24 million for the purchase of 10 additional rubber-tired gantry cranes.
Once the new cranes arrive in 2019, the port will have 156 cranes at the Garden City Terminal. The additional cranes will support three new container rows that are expected to increase the port’s annual capacity by 150,000 TEUs.