SIMIC

Directors for the Alabama Port Authority voted last week in favour of a resolution that would add and develop another 32 acres to APM Mobile's existing 115-acre footprint at the Choctaw Marine Terminal, according to meeting minutes. Approval of the deal comes as Mobile continues to see strong growth, with year-to-date volumes through March climbing 10 per cent.

The terminal expansion, which will be on the terminal's north side, will begin later this year. The first 19 acres are expected to be ready by 2024 and the remaining 13 by 2025, according to the HIS Media.

The port will issue $73 million of debt for the project, with APM responsible for repaying $45 million of that debt, the project's term sheet said. In addition, APMT will also spend $30 million on two ship-to-shore cranes for the expansion. Mobile currently has four super-post-Panamax cranes.

The resolution did not indicate how much capacity the project will add to Mobile, which can currently handle 650,000 TEU per year. But it's known that APM wants to bring its capacity at the port up to 1.5 million TEU in the coming years.

In March 2020, the port extended the berth to allow it to simultaneously handle two 8,000-TEU vessels. This year, the port expects to start another phase of dredging the port's harbour to a 50-foot depth.