Port of Virginia expands to serve four ultra-large container ships at once

The Port of Virginia announced Wednesday that it can now accommodate four ultra-large container ships at the same time after rcently adding four new all-electric cranes and a fourth ultra-large vessel berth at Norfolk International Terminals.

The port put the four new, Suez-class ship-to-shore container cranes into service at NIT in late January. It now has 29 deepwater ship-to-shore cranes capable of handling the biggest container vessels currently serving the Atlantic Ocean trade. A new fourth berth also opened in late January at NIT, and the increased berth capacity coincides with the port’s efforts to dredge Virginia’s commercial shipping channels and Norfolk Harbor to 55 feet deep, making Virginia home to the deepest port on the East Coast.

“This is the kind [of] infrastructure investment that lets ocean carriers and cargo owners using the Port of Virginia know they can grow their volumes here,” Virginia Port Authority interim CEO and Executive Director Sarah J. McCoy said in a statement. “Our berth capability is growing. We now have four [ultra-large container vessel] berths and we are quickly heading toward having the berth capacity to handle five ultra-large container vessels at once.”

The port expects the $450 million dredging project to be completed by the end of this month. A fifth ULCV berth is expected to come online in 2027, when a $650 million reconfiguration and optimization of that area of the terminal is completed.

McCoy said that an ocean carrier’s requirements to safely and efficiently handle its big ships will not outstrip the port’s capabilities to meet those needs.

“Our channels are wide enough to handle two-way ULCV traffic and we are in the last phase of deepening,” McCoy said in a statement. “When the 55-foot channel opens later this month, multiple ULCVs, loaded to their absolute limits, will be able to call here without water depth restrictions, overhead obstructions, berth capacity or concern for congested ship channels.”

The Port of Virginia is one of the state’s economic drivers, accounting for more than 565,000 jobs, more than $124.1 billion in total spending and $5.8 billion in state and local tax revenues.