Port of Baltimore Sets Monthly Container Record

BALTIMORE, MD – The state-owned public marine terminals of the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore have set another record for cargo, handling 98,529 containers in July to establish a new monthly benchmark. The number tops the previous record set in March of 95,962 containers, and is the latest milestone in a continuing strong year for the Port.

Governor Larry Hogan on Monday toured Port Botany, the premier deep water seaport in Sydney, Australia, through which millions of tons of container freight are imported and exported to domestic and international markets each year.

“The Port of Baltimore continues to set records and lead the way as one of our state’s largest economic generators, and to remain competitive we must keep innovating. Port Botany was a great lesson in operational efficiency and environmental sustainability,” said Governor Hogan, who is in Australia on a joint infrastructure and economic development mission. “We are proud of the men and women who work hard every day to keep our Port advancing and showing how Maryland is open for business.”

2019 has already been a banner year for the Port of Baltimore. During the recently completed 2019 fiscal year, from July 2018 through June 2019, the Port’s state-owned public terminals handled 11,001,234 tons of cargo. In the second quarter of 2019, from April to June, the Port handled 2,873,392 tons of cargo, an increase of nearly 3 percent over the previous record of 2,790,745 tons set in the second quarter of 2018.

In March of this year, the Port also set monthly benchmarks for general cargo with 1,018,274 tons, and most cars and light trucks handled in one month, with 59,052. And last month, the Port conducted a record 5,181 container moves while handling the Evergreen Thalassa Elpida. Container moves are the number of times a container is either discharged or loaded from the port onto a ship, and the Thalassa Elpida moves were the largest amount for a single ship in the Port’s 313-year history.

The Port of Baltimore is one of the few U.S. East Coast ports with the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the world’s largest container ships, and in May it welcomed the largest ship ever to come to Maryland, the Evergreen Triton, a vessel that’s the length of four football fields. Continued growth is expected, as a second-deep berth is being planned by Ports America Chesapeake and will allow the Port to handle two supersized ships simultaneously. Construction on this new 50-foot deep berth will begin later this year and is expected to be operational in 2021.

It was also recently announced that Maryland will receive $125 million in federal grant funding toward reconstruction of the 125-year-old Howard Street Tunnel. This project will accommodate double-stacked container trains to and from the Port, a capacity improvement that’s expected to grow the Port’s container business by about 100,000 containers annually. The project is also expected to generate 6,800 tunnel construction jobs and another 7,400 jobs.

Among the nation’s ports, the Port of Baltimore ranks first for autos and light trucks, roll on/roll off heavy farm and construction machinery, imported sugar and imported gypsum. It ranks 11th among major U.S. ports for cargo handled and ninth nationally for total cargo value.

In 2018, a record 43 million tons of international cargo was handled by the combined state-owned public and privately-owned marine terminals at The Port. The value of that cargo was also a benchmark: $59.7 billion. Last year the state-owned public terminals handled a record 10.9 million tons of general cargo and more than a million TEU containers. The Port also handled a record 850,147 cars and light trucks in 2018, the most in the U.S. for the eighth consecutive year.

The Port of Baltimore generates about 15,330 direct jobs, with more than 139,180 jobs overall linked to Port activities. The average salary for people with direct jobs at the Port is 9.5 percent higher than the average annual wage in Maryland. The Port is responsible for nearly $3.3 billion in personal wages and salaries, $2.6 billion in business revenues and $395 million in state and local tax revenues.