The Port of Miami received a Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin deepening of Port of Miami's channel to -50 feet, the port said. Bids will be sought this summer, with construction expected to start in early 2013, to be completed at the same time the expanded Panama Canal opens. Port Director Bill Johnson said the port will be one of only three U.S. Atlantic ports to be at -50 feet when the expanded Panama Canal opens, allowing it to accommodate new, larger Post-Panamax vessels that will be traversing the Canal. As the closest U.S. deep water port to Panama, PortMiami expects to benefit from new trade opportunities with Asian markets, it said.

APM Terminals is offering to operate all Port of Virginia facilities in Hampton Roads and related inland locations under a long-term concession agreement with the Virginia Port Authority (VPA), it said. It proposes to transfer ownership of its facility in Portsmouth to the state, and pay concession fees, make significant additional capital investments, and provide a share of the operations' revenue to the VPA. It said the value of the proposal to Virginia is between $3 billion and $4 billion. APM has operated in Hampton Roads for more than 30 years, and the $540 million it spent to build its Portsmouth facility was one of the largest private investments ever made in Virginia, said Eric Sisco, APM Terminals Americas Region president. The 50-page proposal was submitted under the guidelines of the Virginia Public-Private Transportation Act to Virginia's Office of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships, and will undergo a detailed review in the coming months.

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners is switching to twice-monthly meetings, instead of three times per month, for a 90-day trial period beginning June 4, it said. The board will meet on the first and third Mondays of each month, with one meeting during the day and the other in the evening. The commissioners said the new schedule is designed to give commissioners and the public more time to review agenda items and increase public participation. "We believe in open and transparent meetings," said Harbor Commission Vice President Thomas Fields.

The San Francisco Bar Pilots (SFBP) and Assemblyman Sandré Swanson said they decided to delay their legislative effort to establish rates to provide a second pilot to navigate the world’s largest container vessels into the Port of Oakland. Assemblyman Swanson’s AB-2287 would have provided a partial fee for a second pilot that would operate specialty positioning equipment. SFPB President Bruce Horton said: “When it became clear that the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (PMSA) and other special interest groups did not share our commitment to safety by engaging in good faith negotiations to find a compromise, we decided that it would be best to continue to try and work with the stakeholders to find a solution.” SFPB said AB 2287 would have affected less than one percent of Bay shipping traffic (fewer than 10 vessels annually). But it said as the shipping industry continues to push for larger ships, the number could grow.

Ports in Louisiana have grown in net assets and net income over the last decade, even while employment in the state has been relatively stagnant, according to a report on the ports issued May 21 by the Ports Association of Louisiana. Net assets of the ports have grown by about $60 million per year from 2000 to 2010. Coastal ports grew almost 190 percent and inland ports more than doubled their total assets, according to the report by James Richardson of Louisiana State University. The deep draft ports had an increase in net assets of nearly 40 percent. For deep draft ports, the increase in net income was $1.3 million per year, and for inland ports $0.3 million, the report said. Overall, in recent years there has been a "surge" of port activity around the state, the report said. For example, the Port of South Louisiana in 2011 handled 273,991,603 short tons of cargo, its largest amount ever. It estimated that the ports directly spent just over $194 million in 2011. (For copy of the report email documents@brokerpower.com).

Container traffic at the Port of Long Beach dropped 13 percent in April compared to the same period a year ago, the port said. But it said analysts continue to forecast modest growth in trade for 2012, and the Port of Long Beach announced three new lines of vessels from Asia that will begin calling at the Port later this month. Combined, the three services are expected to add as much as 500,000 TEUs, or twenty-foot equivalent container units, through the remainder of the year, it said. For April, Port terminals handled 461,911 TEUs compared to 531,090 TEUs in April 2011. Imports were down 13.8 percent to 232,963 TEUs, and exports were down 16.2 percent to 120,452 TEUs, it said. The port said the decreases were partly due to the elimination of several niche service lines that had called at the Port last year. Empty container moves were down 7.5 percent to 108,496 TEUs compared to 117,300 a year ago.

Container volume in the Port of Charleston rose nearly 8 percent last month over 2011 levels, the South Carolina Ports Authority board was told May 16. In April, the SCPA handled 123,439 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the Port of Charleston, the strongest April seen at the port since 2008 and a 7.7 percent increase from the same month last year. Containerized traffic in TEUs for the 10 months comprising the fiscal year to date (June through April) is up 2.7 percent from the same period last year while container volume for the calendar year to date (January through April) increased 7.3 percent over 2011 levels. In the Port of Georgetown, pier tons were fairly flat in April compared to the same month last year, but activity there has more than doubled in the fiscal year to date.

The Port of Long Beach officially launched its $1.2 billion project to build an advanced terminal that will feature modern and clean technologies to move cargo. The Middle Harbor project, just across a narrow slip from the Long Beach Container Terminal, is part of a 40-year, $4.6 billion agreement under which the Port will lease to OOCL and LBCT the redeveloped terminal (see ITT Online Archives [Ref.12040514]). The event May 14 included a ceremonial lease signing. The Middle Harbor modernization project will combine two older facilities, LBCT's existing terminal and a nearby, vacated facility, into one container terminal that officials said will reduce air pollution by half even as trade could more than double. As the project progresses, Long Beach Container Terminal, the local subsidiary of OOCL, will expand from its current 90-acre facility to the new, 304-acre terminal with the ability to berth the largest modern ships.

Major improvements at the Port of New Orleans' Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal were dedicated May 11. The improvements, including new gantry cranes and an additional 4.5 acres of marshalling area, represent a $36.4 million investment. The state funded $30 million of the total project investment. The terminal is operated by Ports America and New Orleans Terminal, which is a joint venture between shipping line Mediterranean Shipping Co., or MSC, and terminal operator Ceres Gulf Inc. Major ocean carriers -- including MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA-CGM, Seaboard Marine, Maersk, CSAV and Zim -- use the terminal. The expansion gives the Port of New Orleans the the capacity to handle about 640,000 TEUs, or twenty-foot equivalency units, per year, up from 594,000 TEUs per year. The Port of New Orleans has an expansion footprint at the Napoleon Avenue container Terminal that will support more than 1.2 million containers per year with continued investment.

The port of Dunkirk, France, chose MGI to set up the AP+ Port Community System by spring 2013, replacing Gemini, the port information system created and managed by the economic interest group GECOM, officials said. Patrick Nerrière, president of GECOM, said the choice was made "to improve the competitiveness of the community and its reactivity when faced with a constantly evolving logistics chain".