State of the Port: SC Ports CEO highlights capacity

Jim Newsome, SC Ports’ president and CEO, said that South Carolina Ports’ strategic and timely investments in port infrastructure provide crucial capacity to today’s challenging supply chain environment.

“The significant challenges in the global supply chain supply chain present an opportunity for cargo owners to diversify the port gateways they use to move goods,” he said yesterday during his 13th State of the Port address.

“SC Ports has the berth availability, cargo capacity and fluidity to handle the record cargo volumes and unprecedented amount of retail imports flowing into the Port of Charleston.”

Modernization of the bustling Wando Welch Terminal is ongoing to handle more fully loaded, mega container ships.

The terminal will soon have 15 ship-to-shore cranes with 155 feet of lift height. These enhancements enable SC Ports to handle four 14,000-TEU vessels simultaneously.

When both Leatherman Terminal is fully built with three phases and the upgrades to Wando Welch Terminal are complete, the container terminals will each boast 2.4 million TEUs of annual throughput capacity. 

Also, the Charleston Harbor Deepening Project is on track to achieve a 52-foot depth in 2022, making Charleston Harbor the deepest on the East Coast in 2022 and enabling mega container ships to access terminals any tide of day.