PhilaPort container throughput up to 54,185 TEUs in August 2017
PhilaPort handled 667,069 metric tons of cargo in August, achieving its highest ever monthly total. The Port of Philadelphia also broke new records for monthly container throughput, moving 54,185 TEUs, and forest products, which reached 109,604 metric tons last month, the company said in its press release.
The previous record for total monthly tonnage was reached back in May of 2017, when 625,935 metric tons were handled.
In the important container cargo segment, the old record was 50,152 TEUs, which was achieved in January 2017. Container volumes are recorded in TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), an industry term used to consolidate the different types of containers into a standard unit of measurement. Containers are used to transport consumer goods such as televisions and clothes, refrigerated food cargoes and sensitive or valuable industrial goods such machine tools and parts. The total tonnage of the cargo inside PhilaPort’s August containers was 376,517 metric tons, which also constituted a new record.
Another new monthly volume record was broken in forest products. Several PhilaPort facilities handle this renewable resource, including the Philadelphia Forest Products Center (Penn Warehousing & Distribution), Tioga Marine Terminal (Delaware River Stevedores), and Packer Avenue Marine Terminal (Greenwich Terminals). Leading categories include paper, pulp, and lumber. The former record for forest products was set back in September 2016, when 108,980 metric tons crossed the docks.
This year, PhilaPort has been a leader in growth rates among U.S. Northeast ports. Supply chain professionals list a number of factors to account for The Port of Philadelphia’s impressive growth: the rising awareness of the Port, shipper frustration with congestion and delays at competing ports, the growing number of large distribution centers in the Lehigh Valley and Southern New Jersey – close to the Port and its completed terminal improvements already increasing productivity.
PRPA Logo (516)PhilaPort, The Port of Philadelphia, is an independent agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania charged with the management, maintenance, marketing and promotion of publicly-owned port facilities along the Delaware River in Philadelphia, as well as strategic planning throughout the port district. PhilaPort works with its terminal operators to modernize, expand and improve its facilities, and to market those facilities to prospect port users. Port cargoes and the activities they generate are responsible for thousands of direct and indirect jobs in the Philadelphia area and throughout Pennsylvania.