Operations: Corpus Christi, Jacksonville, Lázaro Cárdenas

Former Port Corpus Christi Cold Storage Warehouse Sets Sail for Santa Marta, Colombia

The long standing refrigerated warehouse at Port Corpus Christi has been completely dismantled and is on the way to its second life of service at the Port of Santa Marta in Colombia. Now completely disassembled, the warehouse components will be delivered to Santa Marta by the vessel Onego Rotterdam.

In support of the alignment and construction of a new Corpus Christi Harbor Bridge, Port Corpus Christi committed to remove the refrigerated warehouse in 2014. On August 12, 2014, the port commission approved a resolution designating the refrigerated warehouse facility and associated furniture, fixtures, and equipment as surplus property.

An agreement between the two ports, Santa Marta and Corpus Christi, was reached in early 2015.

Deconstruction was completed by a local contractor. The facility is completely disassembled, and following shipment to Colombia will be reassembled as a new refrigerated warehouse at Port Santa Marta.

"This news is historic for our country's international trade and infrastructure. Colombia handles large flows of refrigerated cargo, but did not have a port that holds all of these features," said Mauricio Suárez Ramírez, PPM®, general manager of Sociedad Portuaria de Santa Marta. "Without a doubt, this will be the greatest capacity and efficiency of the country, and service large volumes of cargo through the terminal and for Colombia."

Corpus Christi dockworkers preparing reefer warehouse components for transport to Santa Marta, Colombia
Photo/Port Corpus Christi

Oversized steel tanks move through JAXPORT

Master riggers recently moved nine oversized specialty tanks through the Jacksonville Port Authority’s Blount Island Marine Terminal.

The new pressurized steel evaporator tanks, which arrived at JAXPORT from Zhangjiagang, China, are each 45 feet in length, 20 feet in diameter, and weigh 220,000 pounds.

Workers employed by stevedoring company Portus lifted the tanks one at a time from the SAL heavy lift vessel Trina before placing them onboard two barges. The barges transported the tanks along the St. Johns River from Jacksonville to Palatka, Florida, where they will be used at a paper product manufacturing facility.

The heavy lift cargo berth at J Blount Island Marine Terminal offers up to 1,800 pounds per square foot of load capacity, with rail capability up to 78 kips per axle for heavy cargo. JAXPORT also has cargo clearance available for port access by rail on CSX’s national system of 20 feet high and 13 feet wide. Learn more about JAXPORT’s heavy lift capabilities.

Pressurized steel evaporator tank transfer from ship to barge at JAXPORT’s Blount Island Marine Terminal heavy lift facility.
Photo/JAXPORT

Mexico: Docking of Ultra-Large Container Vessel at Lázaro Cárdenas Sets Latin American Record

Maersk Edinburgh arriving at Lázaro Cárdenas’
Photo/API

Already one of Mexico’s top container ports, Lázaro Cárdenas demonstrated its competitive prowess on December 7 with the docking of the ultra-large container ship Maersk Edinburgh.

The 13,568-TEU capacity vessel is the largest container ship to call at a Latin American port, with a length of 366 meters/1,201 feet, beam of 48 meters/157.5 feet, and loaded summer draft of 15.2 meters/49.9 feet. That makes Lázaro Cárdenas one of the few ports in the Western Hemisphere with the demonstrated capacity to accommodate supersized container ships.

While docked at Lázaro Cárdenas’ Container Terminal 1, Maersk Edinburgh unloaded 1595 import containers and loaded more than 200 export containers using the terminal’s seven super-post-Panamax ship-to-shore gantry cranes.

TEC I is operated by Lázaro Cárdenas Terminal Portuaria de Contenedores, a subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings, under a lease agreement with the port authority, Administración Portuaria Integral de Lazaro Cardenas, signed in 2003. A second facility, TCI 2, is under construction by APM Terminals pursuant to a 32-year concession granted in 2012.

Located in the Pacific coast state of Michoacán, Lázaro Cárdenas is Mexico’s second largest container port, after Manzanillo, with throughput in 2014 of more than 1.0 million TEUs (up from 1,646 TEUs in 2003).

Cranes working Maersk Edinburgh at Lázaro Cárdenas’ Container Terminal 1
Photo/API