APM Terminals will add two super-post-Panamax cranes at its terminal at the Port of Mobile, Alabama, and expand the port’s container terminal by 20 acres.
The expansion will double the number of ship-to-shore cranes at the port and increase the terminal’s annual capacity to 475,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units from the current 350,000 TEUs, APMT said. Future expansions could increase annual capacity to more than 1.3 million TEUs.
Last year, Mobile handled 173,527 TEUs, excluding empty containers, according to PIERS, a sister product of JOC.com within IHS Maritime & Trade. Mobile ranked third among Gulf ports in container volume, behind Houston and New Orleans.
From Jan. to April 2015, container volume at the Port of Mobile has grown 6 percent compared to the same period in 2014. Compared that timeframe in 2013, the port’s volume has increased 8 percent.
APMT operates the Mobile terminal, which the Alabama State Port Authority opened in 2008. The port has begun construction of an intermodal container transfer facility that is scheduled to open in early 2016 and provide connections to the five Class 1 railroads serving Mobile.
In 2014 the port authority acquired 35 acres adjacent to the container terminal for future expansion, and purchased 63 acres of industrial property near the terminal.
APMT said it is investing $40 million in the new cranes and container-yard acreage to meet future demand from ship lines calling U.S. Gulf ports following next year’s scheduled opening of larger locks at the Panama Canal.
With a 45-foot water depth, the Mobile terminal is already handling ships with capacities up to 8,400 TEUs. The larger canal locks will handle ships with maximum capacities of about 12,500 to 13,000 TEUs.
“Mobile is a great place to be and we look forward to growing the terminal as the Gulf Coast’s gateway to the South Atlantic,” said APM Terminals’ Chief Operating Officer, Jeff De Best.
Four miles from the container terminal, the Europe-based Airbus consortium is completing construction of a $600 million final assembly line for the A320 aircraft. Other growing industries in the area include automobile manufacturing, with over one and a half million cars produced annually within four hours of the port. The port also handles large amounts of steel, poultry and forest products.
