“This is great news from our longstanding partner Maersk demonstrating their commitment to our expanding market.” stated Port Tampa Bay President & CEO Paul Anderson.
“This new container connection which will allow Port Tampa Bay customers to connect with Maersk’s worldwide network of services via its hub in Cartagena”, added Raul Alfonso, Port Tampa Bay’s Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer.
Maersk is one of the top global container lines and part of AP Moller-Maersk, an integrated container logistics company headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, serving 374 ports in 116 countries around the world.
Port Tampa Bay is the closest port to the I-4 Corridor, home to Florida’s largest concentration of distribution centers, with over 550 million square feet of space stretching from Tampa to Orlando. Because of the port’s proximity to this huge market in its backyard, customers can make multiple round-trip deliveries per day between the Port and their DCs, resulting in significant savings in truck drayage costs.
Together with container terminal operator partner Ports America, Port Tampa Bay is making significant investments to expand capacity and has recently added three more STS gantry cranes for a total now of five, with plans to acquire two more. A new, expanded state of the art gate complex is now open and additional paved storage expansion is underway that will bring the container terminal footprint to 100 acres, with construction about to soon begin on a third deep-water berth and a new on-dock rail-served trans-load warehouse.