Jersey City's Global Container Terminals unveils $325 million expansion project

By Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal
June 18, 2014 at 6:59 PM

Global Container Terminals in Jersey City held a grand opening today for the completion of a $325 million expansion project which officials say will increase safety, efficiency, environmental friendliness and double the number of containers passing through the terminal.

?Before, it could take up to two hours to get a truck totally through the process,? Global Terminals Chief Operating officer John Atkins said at today?s event, held on a pier which had been extended by 900 feet at a cost of $100,000 as part of the project. ?Once we are fully utilizing the new system, it should be about 45 minutes.?

Jim Devine, Global Terminal president and chief executive officer, said the terminal is one of only five in the area which can be accessed without passing under the Bayonne Bridge and that means it can accept larger vessels.

He pointed to an enormous container ship docked 100 yards away, saying it can carry 8,800 20-foot containers and ?that cannot fit under the Bayonne Bridge?

A key element in the expansion project was the erection of semi-automated rail mounted gantries which stack containers for storage and later retrieve them and place them on trucks using sophisticated new computer software.

Safety is improved through the use of remote control centers and automation. The exit gate has been redesigned to get trucks out of the terminal more quickly, reducing engine exhaust emissions.

The gantries are electric, making them more environmentally friendly and they generate power as they lower containers.
Global Container Terminals in Jersey City held a grand opening today for the completion of a $325 million expansion project which officials say will increase safety, efficiency, environmental friendliness and double the number of containers passing thr

With the new system, enormous gantries operated manually take containers off ships and places them on the ground. The container is then picked up by a manually operated shuttle truck and brought to the rail mounted gantries which stacks them and later retrieves them.

A longshoreman makes the final adjustments when the container is lowered onto a truck. The truck then exits through the new gate system which uses radio frequency identification and optical character recognition to speed the process.

Devine said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recognized the need for improvements at Global Terminal in the interim period before the Bayonne Bridge is raised in order to allow larger vessels to pass beneath it. He said there was a conscious decision made to leave some functions manual and said the improvements were not made to cut jobs.

?The ship lines and trucking companies are our primary customers and what we have tried to do is bring the best services to those entities,? Devine said.

About five ships per week dock at Global terminal. The facility was capable of processing less than 500,000 containers per year but the new system will allow it to process about 1.1 million, Global Terminal Chief Operating Officer John Atkins said. He said the project also expanded the facility from about 100 acres to 170 acres

Richard Ceci, expansion project manager, said productivity will be up to 70 percent better. He said the terminal had been able to more 25 to 27 containers from ship to shore per hour and with the new system will be able to move about 40 per hour.

?This is just a major investment in safety and efficiency and it?s a better proposition for all participants,? Ceci said. ?It adds a lot of extra capacity outside the Bayonne Bridge.?

The project was funded by the Port Authority, a federal grant and by Global Terminal?s owner, Ontario Teacher?s Pension Plan. The expansion project started in 2010 is nearly completely online.

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