Dredge away

COVER STORY

Dredge away

Project will help port regain its status as deepest on East Coast

by Jessica Sabbath

In May 2017, Virginia celebrated the arrival of Cosco Development, the first “ultra-large container vessel” (ULCV) to visit the Port of Virginia and the U.S. East Coast.

Now these massive vessels — almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall — visit the port regularly. On a single day in March, two behemoth vessels were

berthed at the port’s Virginia International Gateway terminal in Portsmouth.

When these massive ships travel to and from the

2 A publication of Virginia Business magazine

The CMA CGM J. Adams, an ultra-large container vessel, calls on the port in March. These vessels displace so much water that the U.S. Coast Guard restricts the channel to one-way navigation when these ships travel to and from the port.

port’s marine terminals, the U.S. Coast Guard restricts the Thimble Shoal Channel to one-way navigation for up to four hours. That restriction can create a bottleneck for a busy waterway used by container, bulk, breakbulk and U.S. Navy ships.

Now the Port of Virginia and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are working quickly to alleviate the issue. They are aggressively working through the preliminary engineering and design stages of the $272

million Norfolk Harbor Deepening Project that will dredge the main Norfolk channel to 55 feet and widen the Thimble Shoal Channel to 1,400 feet.

When completed, the Port of Virginia once again will reign as the deepest port on the U.S. East Coast. That distinction is increasingly important as ocean carriers continue to deploy larger ships.

“Two-way navigation 24-7 is something that no other port on the East Coast will match,” says David

Photo by Mark Rhodes

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COVER STORY

White, executive vice president of the Virginia Maritime Association. “No other port on the East Coast

White will have the same ease of transiting

in and out without any overhead obstructions. It will create the safest environment that there is for ships to navigate.”

The dredging project also comes at a time when the Port of Virginia is undergoing expansion and modernization projects at its two largest terminals, increasing the port’s overall capacity by 40 percent. (See Page 8 for details.) “Our infrastructure projects and our wider, deeper, safer projects are both designed to attract ultra-large container vessels,” says John Reinhart, executive director and CEO of the Virginia Port Authority. “So, the frequency of these ultra-large container ships is continuing to increase. And all of our building of infrastructure is welcoming them so we can handle them along the berths with the modern cranes.

And what the widening, deepening will do is allow us to have two-way traffic [with ULCVs.]”

Priority for more than a decade

ULCVs underscore the need for wider and deeper channels, but the Norfolk dredging project has been a priority for Virginia’s maritime community for more than a decade.

Ocean carriers continue to build and use larger ships to squeeze efficiencies out of transporting goods around the globe. Deeper channels can accommodate these larger vessels safely and allow them to come in more fully loaded.

“These larger vessels, they cost less to transport a certain volume of commodity versus a smaller vessel,” says Robert Pretlow, the project manager in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Norfolk office. “So, that’s how we justify the projects. We look at a reduction in the transportation cost of moving commodities into the port.”

Virginia received federal

authorization to dredge its Norfolk channel to 55 feet in 1986. But, ultimately, the commonwealth decided to dredge its channels to only 50 feet because of budgetary concerns.

Still, at 50 feet, Virginia for years could say it had the deepest port on the East Coast.

But over the past decade, East Coast ports began dredging projects to accommodate larger ships. The Panama Canal Authority had embarked on plans to widen its channels, which would allow the bigger ships to travel through the canal from Asia.

Now ports such as New Jersey/New York and Miami have matched Virginia’s 50-foot mark. The Port of Charleston also is undergoing a project that will dredge its channels to 52 feet.

“Other ports have caught up to us, and it was a real competitive advantage for us when we were the deepest port on the East Coast,” says White of the Virginia Maritime Association. In 2015, the Port of Virginia and the Norfolk District

NORFOLK HARBOR & CHANNELS DEEPENING PROJECT

The dredging project will take place in four segments.

4 A publication of Virginia Business magazine Graphic courtesy Port of Virginia

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office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers embarked on a three-year study to determine if the 55-foot depth was still viable. The study not only recommended a 55-foot depth for inner harbor channels, but also dredging to 56 feet in the Thimble Shoal Channel in the Chesapeake Bay and to 59 feet in the Atlantic Ocean channel.

Since then, the port and the Corps of Engineers have worked together to move the project forward. It received approval last year from the corps’ leadership on an accelerated timeline. “We have a very strong and close relationship with the Port of Virginia, and because of that relationship we are able to move ahead with this project in such an accelerated and efficient method,” says Pretlow.

The project last year also received a critical boost from the state. The General Assembly agreed to spend $20 million to fund design and engineering work on the project and $330 million in bond authorization for its construction.

Accelerated work

The money allowed the port and Corps of Engineers to jump-start work on the project. In a unique arrangement, the port is serving as project manager on the first portion of the project. That move allowed the port to move forward on the first segment while it works to receive what is called “jump start” designation from the federal government that will help the project receive federal funds. Funding for the project ultimately is expected to be split between the corps and the commonwealth.

With the state money available up front, the port has moved ahead on the engineering for the first segment of the project, dredging the western part of the Thimble Shoal Channel. That includes simulating ships’ impacts on the channels, searching for sunken vessels that could affect dredging operations, sampling sediment and evaluating how during construction to protect the Chesapeake Bay Bridge- Tunnel, which runs under the channel.

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The port is on schedule to issue a request for proposal for the dredging contract this summer, with dredging on the first

Reinhart segment beginning in

January. “We’re trying to pull everything and push for [the entire project] to be done in 2024,” says Reinhart. “We’re trying to take a year to 18 months out of the schedule, and everything is tracking quite nicely.”

In addition, the corps and the port have signed an agreement for design and engineering of the entire project, which will allow them to complete the design work while involved in dredging for the first phase. “The way we look at it is: We always want to be ready for the next construction phase,” says Pretlow. “After we finish one, we want to be ready to move onto the next.”

The corps recently completed an engineering evaluation on the project, which determined its basic schedule. Once the Thimble Shoal Channel West dredging is complete, the next phase is Thimble Shoal Channel East, with widening, then dredging the Atlantic Ocean and finally the Norfolk and Newport News channels. “These are really significant dredging efforts,” says Pretlow, with many portions expected to take years.

Opportunities on the Southern Branch

Ships carrying bulk and breakbulk cargoes, like grain and minerals, also have been increasing in size. So, the Port of Virginia and Army Corps of Engineers also have plans to dredge the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. That project would cost $159 million.

The Southern Branch is home to more than 50 private terminals. The group includes large terminals, such as Perdue Agribusiness, which has the largest grain elevator on the East Coast, and Enviva Partners LP, which makes wood pellets for renewable energy. Bulk cargo vessels often receive less press than the massive container ships, but the terminals along the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River handle

6 A publication of Virginia Business magazine

a variety of commodities, such as road salt, pumice, grain and wood pellets.

“Nowadays the workhorse of the bulk fleet are Supermaxs, which are being light-loaded to come into the Southern

van de Mortel

Branch,” says Cees van de Mortel, senior commercial officer of T. ParkerHost, a Norfolk-based maritime agency and stevedoring company for many terminals on the Southern Branch. “Deepening will really benefit them because now you can come in much more fully loaded, which will lower freight rates. Improved efficiency should lead to more cargo.”

Plans for the Southern Branch include dredging the channel from 40 to 45 feet between Lamberts Bend and Perdue Farms; from 40 to 42 feet to the Norfolk Southern Lift Bridge; and 35 to 39 feet from there to the Gilmerton Bridge.

The schedule for the project has not yet been determined.

Potential impacts The dredging project should drive growth at the port’s terminals, providing a boost to the Hampton Roads and Virginia economy, industry officials say.

Reinhart says larger ships increasingly will call on the Port of Virginia as carriers continue looking for efficiencies. Deeper channels combined with the modernized terminal projects should be attractive to ocean carriers. “They’re all trying to fill the full breach and reach of a vessel, and it just makes it so much more efficient,” says Reinhart. “They want to go where they won’t be delayed.”

The dredging project also will allow vessels to come into the port heavier. That means Virginia could be more likely to be a “first-in,” or “last-out,” stop on shipping lines’ routes. That is when ships are heaviest, full of imports or exports, meaning more cargo flowing through Virginia’s terminals.

Bill Cofer, president of the

Virginia Pilot Association, concurs. Pilots are responsible for navigating commercial and Navy vessels from the ocean through the channels to marine terminals. Cofer says the pilots plan on conducting simulation training on the next size class of vessel in case carriers deploy even larger ships than those already visiting the port.

But he expects the ULCVs holding around 14,000-TEUs to become increasingly common for East Coast ports. A TEU is a 20-foot equivalent unit. Those currently are the biggest ships visiting the Port of Virginia. The port, he says, will be best prepared to handle heavier ships as many other ports face tidal restrictions.

“This will bring businesses to Virginia,” says Cofer. “This will bring manufacturing. Companies wanting to get established in the United States look to ports, look to getting their cargo. This isn’t just about Hampton Roads and the port, this is going to be the game-changer for the commonwealth.”

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