WASHINGTON: The Port of Wilmington had discussions with a potential new ocean carrier service that would significantly boost container traffic coming in and out of Delaware, according to the port’s recently released master plan. Port officials declined to comment, but the master plan included projected traffic from the relocation of an existing ocean liner serving U.S.-North European trade that currently serves two ports on the eastern seaboard and has a six percent share of a two-way transatlantic market.
“In 2017, it is predicted that port volume growth will be 21 percent, the fastest annual gain since 2011,” the master plan states. “The new container service provides the main impetus.” The Diamond State Port Corporation, a quasi-governmental entity that oversees the port, commissioned the master plan earlier this year. The document gives port officials an outlook on how the port will grow in the coming decades and what improvements need to be made to the existing facility at the confluence of the Christina and Delaware Rivers to accommodate that growth.
