In anticipation of an imminent agreement that would allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin the first phase of dredging for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, the Georgia Ports Authority board on Monday authorized GPA Executive Director Curtis Foltz to execute an agreement with the Georgia Department of Transportation and OK’d him to sign the Project Partnership Agreement.
“It looks like our long-awaited PPA is finally here,” said authority board chairman Jim Walters, in calling for a vote on the resolution, which was enthusiastically seconded by former board chair Bob Jepson.
Foltz said state review of the document is complete and approved as submitted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“We are truly in the final phase of approval and anticipate a signing within 10 to 14 days,” he said.
“Stay tuned, we’re almost there.”
But don’t expect the GPA to break out the confetti and sound the trumpets when the PPA is finally signed.
“We won’t have time for celebration,” Foltz said. “We’ll have to begin immediately working on getting the funding necessary to complete the project,”
The state already has set aside $266 million, its share of the project’s $706 million price tag.
“That should get us through the first year, at least,” Foltz said. “But we must have federal money in the fiscal year 2016 budget that comes out in January, and we need substantial money in the federal budget for fiscal 2017.
“We can’t slow down until we have that,” he said. “We’ll have time to pop the champagne corks when the final scoop of mud comes up”
In the meantime, volumes continue to grow and records continue to be broken at the country’s busiest container port.
Total 20-foot container units reached 301,822 in August, the first time the port has handled more than 300,000 in a single month. Together, the first two months of FY 2015 — which began July 1 — saw nearly 600,000 20-foot containers move across GPA docks.
On the breakbulk side, August volumes were up 6.5 percent in Savannah, with Ocean Terminal reporting growth in iron, steel, rubber and plywood. Brunswick’s Colonel’s Island facility handled more than 57,000 automobiles for the month, up 7.3 percent.
Bulk commodities were up some 13 percent, driven primarily by growth of biomass products — peanut-hull pellets were up 64 percent, while wood pellets grew by 45 percent.
Growth across the board resulted in record revenue of $28.2 million for August, Foltz said.
While September numbers aren’t complete, Foltz told the board he expects container volumes for the first quarter of FY 2015 to be up by double digits, with growth marked by significant increases in imports.
“Three factors are driving import growth — U.S. economic recovery, cargo diversion from the West Coast due to uncertainty with labor negotiations and market-share gains with new customer activity,” he said.
When asked how much of the diverted West Coast cargo the port of Savannah might retain permanently, Foltz said it was too soon to tell.
“We have customers now that have never used our ports and they are thrilled with the efficiency, productivity and access to market they have with us,” he said. “It’s one thing to hear that we’re the fastest growing port in the country, but when a customer uses us for the first time, they realize why.
“Just based on the feedback we’re getting, we definitely think we’ll gain some new import market share. We just don’t know how much.”
Foltz said he expects strong import volumes to continue through mid-November, then moderate for the remainder of the calendar year, adding that the impact of consumer spending on inventory levels will shape import growth in the second half of the fiscal year.
In other GPA business, the board:
• Approved an agreement to lease 1.1 acres of unimproved port-owned land on Hutchinson Island to the city of Savannah to build a fire station.
• Authorized the contribution of up to $3 million to supplement federal dredging funds for Brunswick harbor
• OK’d funds of up to $1.3 million to install reinforced concrete runways in the Container Berth 4-6 area at Garden City Terminal. The runways are necessary to support heavy loads handled by the rubber-tired gantry cranes.
• Approved the latest phase of container storage consolidation for Garden City Terminal Berths 1-3. The project creates five stackable container rows from four existing rows, providing 20 percent more storage on the same footprint.
“Increasing our capacity means increasing jobs and economic opportunity,” Walters said. “More cargo moving through our ports supports growth, not only within the transportation sector but in the goods and services supported by logistics industry payrolls.”