On Wednesday May 15, CSCMP's NY/NJ roundtable hosted a tour of Maher’s Marine Terminal Operation in Port Elizabeth, NJ. This port terminal has been consistently recognized for several years running as the best terminal operation throughout all of the NY/NJ ports. CSCMP NY/NJ would like to acknowledge and give special thanks to the Port Authority of NY & NJ (Nick Raspanti and Rado Saragih) and Maher Terminal (Ivo Oliviera and Frank Capo) for their support of our event.
Our tour began with an overview of the Port Authority of NY & NJ highlighting their overall responsibilities and what they’re investing in to keep the this area at the forefront of international trade. Last year the port terminals handled a new record of 7.2 Million TEU’s (Twenty Foot Equivalent Units), a 14.8% increase over 2017, while providing access to 44 Million consumers within a 4 hour drive (compared with the Port of Norfolk’s ability to access 14.9 Million consumers and the Port of Savannah’s ability to access 11.8 Million consumers within a 4 hour drive). The NY/NJ ports rank 3rd behind only the Port of LA and the Port of Long Beach in terms of total TEU volume and greatly surpass all other east coast port operations. For container vessels arriving on the east coast, the port of NY/NJ is the first port of a call for roughly 75% of these vessels, offering greater speed to market for the imported goods, where import containers can reach their destination prior to the vessels transporting these containers reach their second port of call. With the Panama canal expansion, raising of the Bayonne Bridge and deepening of the Kill Van Kull waterway that provides vessel access to Port Elizabeth and Port Newark all completed, the Port of NY/NJ now has the ability to handle 9 vessels containing more than 14,000 TEU’s at one time, something no other Port on the east coast can offer.
Maher Terminal then provided some insight into their continued investments in their terminal operation to ensure they retain their status as the best terminal operator in the Port of NY & NJ. As an individual terminal operator, when compared to entire Port areas throughout the US, they rank 6th in terms of total TEU’s handled. One feature that makes Maher terminal so attractive to steamship lines calling on Port Elizabeth is their access to the on-dock ExpressRail Elizabeth operation located between Maher Terminal and APM Terminal, which allows discretionary cargo (cargo with a destination outside of the local market) to move to major inland distribution areas like Chicago. With large vessels being the new normal and speed to market being more important, many Steamship lines are now deciding to move their discretionary cargo through the Port of NY & NJ. CSCMP NY/NJ's roundtable would like to give special thanks to Frank Capo and Ivo Oliveira from Maher Terminal.
We then boarded a bus for a group tour of the terminal operation itself, to better understand the process flow within Maher terminal and see how the containers are handled from being off loaded from the container vessel through the container being placed on a chassis which the drayage providers they moved from the terminal to its final destination. While we can’t share many of details of the operation itself, it’s a tour that’s well worth taking for anyone involved international trade. We’d like to thank both the Port Authority of NJ & NJ and Maher terminal for opening their doors to us and encourage anyone who missed this tour to keep an eye out for next year’s tour.