By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published June 23, 2009

The S.C. State Ports Authority board signed off on a new fiscal year budget on Tuesday morning that anticipates another 6% decline in container traffic over the next 12 months, on top of an expected 19% drop in the current fiscal year that ends June 30.

In the current fiscal year, through May 31, the SPA handled 731,866 pier containers, compared to its planned 879,050 containers, leaving the agency 16.7% under is 2009 fiscal year plan. In 2008, the SPA handled 892,663 boxes.

After taking in June’s numbers, the port anticipates it will have handled 19.3% fewer containers this fiscal year than in 2008’s fiscal year.

Operating revenues for the port through May 31 are about $16.5 million less than planned for the year-to-date.

The SPA is anticipating operating revenues in the 2010 fiscal year to be $127.4 million, an expected $9.9 million drop compared to projected operating revenues in the 2009 fiscal year.

The port based its budget on the expectation that it will handle 734,130 pier containers between July 1 and June 30, 2010. The port anticipates it will close this fiscal year having handled a total of 784,689 pier containers.

Those numbers include Maersk Line’s current four weekly ship calls, down from an original seven calls. Maersk has threatened to leave Charleston in 2010, but negotiations continue to keep that business here. Even if Maersk upholds that threat, its contract runs through December of next year, which would fall in the 2011 fiscal year.

Paul McClintock, the SPA’s new chief commercial officer, said the port’s objective is to best those planned numbers.

“We certainly believe we will finish the year better than that,” McClintock said. “There’s plenty of business out there; we just have to bring it to the port.”

The SPA has set out on an aggressive new mission to lure break bulk, non-containerized cargo for the ports of Charleston and Georgetown, McClintock said. Another one of his missions is to change the policy regarding weight limits on S.C. roads, and to bring it more in line with neighboring states of North Carolina and Georgia, which allow for heavier loads.

That could help draw new business, McClintock said, citing the poultry industry as one key business niche that South Carolina could be missing out on because of the road’s load capacities, he said.

Reach Molly Parker at 843-849-3144.