A coming shipping bidding war with VA and SC?

A special report by Michelle Cater Rash in the May 10 issue of the Triad Business Journal details plans for the NC International Terminal seaport in Southport, scheduled to open in 2016, and likely to enhance trucking and distribution business in the Triad. The report also alludes to the zero-sum nature of shipping markets on the Eastern seaboard.

Kay Dobie, the director of the Transportation Institute at NC A&T State University, agrees the terminal will likely have a huge impact in the Triad. But, she says, in order to have the impact the authority predicts, it will need to lure traffic away from existing ports in Norfolk and Charleston. That may be a problem since those ports will be ready to handle the increased ship traffic as soon as the [expanded] Panama Canal opens, while the NC International Terminal will still be under construction.

“Once Southport is operational, it makes sense that the Triad would provide a stop-off location,” she says. “But all of that is dependent on what ocean liners they can attract and we are going to have to work at getting those ships away from other stops.”

Anyone up for an incentives bidding war with Virginia and South Carolina come 2016?

The ticket to the dance won't be cheap. Rash reports that the NC Ports Authority would have to spend $3.7 billion to build the port, which would accommodate 3 million containers a year — compared to about 250,000 containers per year that currently move through Wilmington and Morehead. The report estimates that, once complete, Southport will bring $334 million in state and local tax revenue to the Triad. But how much of that depends on whether shipping companies are willing to switch from Norfolk and Charleston to Southport?