SC Ports President and CEO delivers her 3rd State of the Port
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – It’s that time of the year again when we get an in depth look at how one of the fastest growing ports on the East Coast is performing.
Based on SC Ports President and CEO Barbara Melvin’s State of the Port Address on Wednesday, there are no plans to slow down anytime soon.
Melvin took the stage for her third State of the Port inside a warehouse at the Columbus Street Terminal, a first-time venue for the annual event.
“As one of my port police told me when we decided to change the location from a hotel to here, they’re like, ‘you’re taking it to the streets, you’re showing people what we do on a daily basis,’” Melvin told reporters.
The president and CEO delivered the annual speech in front of a crowd of more than 1,200 colleagues, industry partners, stakeholders, and elected officials.
“Our fingerprints, our South Carolina fingerprints stretch far and wide. And they can only get far and wide because of this port,” said South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette.
This year, the port recovered from several challenges like when operations were interrupted by a tech issue in May and then again, this month by the historic port strike.
“Teamwork is how you get through it. The South Carolina maritime community wanted to go back to work. And we went back to work, and we said, ‘we’re going to open first, we’re going to work the first vessel on the East and Gulf coasts,’ and we cleared up our vessel queue by the 9th of October as other ports are still challenged today,” Melvin shared.
Despite the setbacks, it was a record-breaking year for Wando Welch Terminal with more than 1.2 million containers moving across its wharf. Rail-served inland ports made major strides, handling 24% more cargo in Fiscal Year 2024 than the year before.
Meanwhile, construction of the Navy Base Intermodal Facility is making headway while the new toe wall at Wando is nearly complete.
“We are proactively continuing to invest in our infrastructure to support the booming Southeast market and are preparing for the long-term and supporting our customers investments in this market,” Melvin remarked during the speech.
She used the address as an opportunity to announce plans to construct another 1,600 feet of berth for the Hugh Leatherman Terminal Wharf, which has bid opening scheduled for November 12.
All of this is setting the stage for the port to hold 10 million TEUs, or twenty-foot equivalent units, in the Charleston Harbor by 2050.
“Capacity is a port’s currency and so, we have to be able to show that if people put capital in the ground in South Carolina, that our port system can support that for 50 years to come. Otherwise, people won’t invest, factories won’t build here,” Melvin said. “And so, that is what that 10 million TEUs of capacity represents…”
Dr. Joseph Von Nessen, a research economist at the University of South Carolina, found that SC Ports delivers an $87 billion economic impact in the state every year and supports one in nine South Carolina jobs.
