Port of Savannah to become containers only facility

The Port of Savannah is upgrading to become a container-only facility to meet booming demand after a year-long increase in cargo volumes.

The port plans a US$410 million overhaul of one of its sprawling terminals to make room for loading and unloading larger ships while focusing its business almost exclusively on cargo shipped in containers.

The Georgia Ports Authority approved the project recently under a plan to expand Savannah's capacity for cargo containers by more than 50% by 2025.

"We're taking the Georgia ports from a Southeast gateway to a global gateway," said Griff Lynch, executive director of the Georgia Port Authority, which has seen over a decade of explosive growth at the state-owned seaports in Savannah and Brunswick.

Ocean Terminal will be converted to handling cargo in containers, from consumer electronics to frozen chicken by ship, train, or truck.

The terminal's berths will be upgraded with room to service two large ships simultaneously using eight new ship-to-shore cranes, at an additional cost of US$163 million.

Mass traffic jams off the West Coast caused shippers to divert cargo to Savannah and other ports along the East and Gulf Coasts. That resulted in Savannah handling a record 5.8 million teu of imports and exports across its docks in the 2022 fiscal year to June 30. That volume was just shy of Savannah's current capacity of 6 million teu.

The port authority's plan to add capacity for an additional 3 million teu by 2025 would give Savannah more room when the next cargo crush arrives. As Ocean Terminal undergoes its transformation, a newly expanded cargo berth will open in the summer at Savannah's main container terminal.

The expanded Ocean Terminal berths will be built in phases, with the first opening in 2025 and the second in 2026, Lynch said. He said converting an existing terminal to handle large container ships will be more efficient than building a brand new one, which would take up to five years.

Work will begin with rebuilding the docks to provide 850 m of berth space, capable of serving two ships simultaneously. 

Breakbulk cargo will shift to the Colonel’s Island terminal at the Port of Brunswick, which has historically focused on handling high-volume ro-ro shipments. 

The Port of Savannah, the US’ fourth-busiest container port, experienced a substantial increase in throughput in the post-pandemic era. In 2021, a boom year for containerized freight.

GPA moved about 10% of all US containerized cargo volume. The pace of growth continued this year. In August, the port handled 575,000 teu, an 18.5% increase compared to the same month in 2021. In October the port moved 553,000 teus, up 9.6% compared to the same month last year.