PrintPrintThe National Shipping Co. of Saudi Arabia is adding a call to the Port of Charleston to its service between North America and the Middle East, according to an online report today in the Journal of Commerce. The service is expected to make its first call in April.
By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published March 16, 2009
With all the bad news hammering the Port of Charleston lately, it appears local maritime officials finally have some new business to celebrate.
The National Shipping Co. of Saudi Arabia is adding a call to the Port of Charleston to its service between North America and the Middle East, according to an online report today in the Journal of Commerce. The service is expected to make its first call in April.
A spokeswoman for the S.C. State Ports Authority would not comment, but a press conference with maritime leaders has been scheduled for Tuesday at noon.
The announcement for the event is headlined “Maritime leaders to announce new business through the Port of Charleston.”
The event is being held at the construction office of the Charleston Naval Base Container Terminal in North Charleston, at 2025 Bainbridge Ave.
The press conference will follow the SPA board’s monthly meeting, which starts at 9 a.m. at the construction office. The board meeting is being held at the construction site instead of its normal location at the SPA’s headquarters in downtown Charleston.
The board is expected to take up two action items:
· The first item is an award of a contract for the demolition of refrigeration bunkers and foundations at the Wando Welch Terminal. In December, a new, 25-acre storage yard for refrigerated shipping containers opened at the rear of the Mount Pleasant terminal.
Before that, the terminal functioned with two separate areas for refrigerated containers: one in the common-user area and one in the area operated by licensed user APM Terminals.
The project involves the demolition of the concrete structures that were necessary to support the refrigeration equipment — including electrical circuits, transformers and cabling — in these two areas. Following that, the area will be repaved to provide a flat and even surface for the SPA to store containers. On the common-user side, the space will be an extension of the existing rubber tire gantry rows. On the licensed-user side, the area will remain a wheeled operation.
The SPA staff is recommending that the board approve a $281,916 award to Palmetto Construction Group of Charleston for the work.
· The second item involves site preparation and stabilization work for the construction of the new terminal on the former Navy base. In September 2006, the SPA contracted with Moffatt & Nichol to provide engineering design, permit and construction support services for the site preparation and consolidation stage.
The board will vote on a staff recommendation to amend the contract for an additional cost of $148,011 in three areas:
1. Because of delays in obtaining construction permits for the removal of fill material from the Daniel Island cells, the SPA is moving forward with the containment wall construction project, splitting the initial project of containment wall and tideland fill. This restructuring of contracts allows the SPA to maintain the schedule for completion of the first phase of the terminal. The total cost for the additional engineering services is $72,975.
2. During site preparation, some sites are settling at slightly different rates, creating slope failures. Additional testing and engineering analysis were required to confirm the cause of the failures. The analysis led to restrictions on the rate and height of the surcharge placement along the site, which reduces the risk of future slope failures. The net cost for the related engineering services is $56,434.
3. To ultimately save approximately $40 million on the cost of filling in the tideland area with 5 million cubic yards of material, the U.S. Department of the Interior approved a no-cost, noncompetitive lease that allows the SPA to bring in fill material from an ocean dredge disposal site for construction of the new terminal. The cost for additional engineering services on the environmental assessment for the relocation of material from the disposal site to the project site is $18,602.
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