GPA orders six more cranes in drive to make Savannah continent's most productive port

The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), which runs the ports of Savannah and Brunswick, will purchase six ship-to-shore cranes to go along with the four it already has on order, additional capacity that will make Savannah the most productive containerport in North America by 2020, the port authority said today.

The six cranes, which will cost $72.5 million, will be delivered in 2020, GPA said. The four cranes that were previously ordered are expected to enter the fleet in June. By the start of the decade, GPA will have 36 cranes capable of handling 1,300 containers per hour on a single deck, a pace unmatched by any other North American terminal, the port authority said.

The 10 additional cranes will boost crane capacity by 40 percent, GPA said. Savannah is one of only four U.S. ports whose terminal operations are not controlled by private entities. The others are Houston, Norfolk, and Charleston.

In a related development, GPA handled an all-time high of 3.85 million twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) containers through Savannah in its fiscal year ending June 30, a 6.7-percent increase from prior fiscal-year results. In the second half of the 2017 fiscal year, Savannah handled just under 2 millions TEUs, an 11.6-percent increase from the year-earlier period.

In a statement, GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch said the port's volumes "continue to outpace forecasted demand." Liner companies are moving 13,000 and 14,000 TEU mega-vessels into East Coast ports "more quickly than anticipated," he said.

The Port of Brunswick handles bulk, breakbulk and roll-on, roll-off cargoes such as automobiles.