TEXAS: Winter’s bitter grip on the region may have iced what could have been a record container haul at the Port of Virginia last month.
The Virginia Port Authority, which operates terminals in Portsmouth, Newport News and Norfolk, said Wednesday a total of 178,105 standard 20-foot containers moved through the port last month. That’s nearly a 1 percent decrease from 179,524 container units posted in February 2014.
Port officials say had five vessels not delayed their entry into its terminals, nearly 7,000 containers would have been counted towards last month’s totals – pushing the container count 5.8 percent ahead of February 2014 totals.
Officials are set to release the port’s financial results for February on March 24, the release said.
Of the more than 178,000 containers posted at the port last month, 30,421 of those containers were moved by rail. That’s a 9 percent decrease over 33,523 containers moved by rail in February 2014.
A total of 3,242 containers were moved by barge last month. That’s down by 21 percent over the 4,109 containers moved by barges at the port during February 2014.
Frigid weather conditions and heavy snow forced the port authority to activate its snow removal and resumption of operations plan – forcing the port to close on Feb. 16 and Feb. 25 so crews to remove snow and ice from equipment and port entries.
“The weather we had in February forced us to close for nearly four days and that had a direct negative impact on every phase of our operation: gates, vessels and rail,” said John F. Reinhart, CEO and executive director of the Virginia Port Authority, in a statement. “Following resumption of operations we were still contending with bitter cold and icy conditions that hampered productivity…it has been expensive to mitigate the weather and closures.”
Reinhart said port officials are focusing its efforts to regain operating tempo in an effort to improve flow at the gates and velocity at the rail and vessel operations, as port officials anticipate a busy March.
“The cargo volume is still trending higher and we have to improve service quickly with the improved weather conditions,” Reinhart said.
