Diverse range of activities keeping ports of Florida’s Gulf Coast busy

Florida Gulf Coast ports are bustling with a wide range of commercial activities, extending far beyond moves of containerized cargo at or near record pace, to include such liquid bulk goods as juices and fuels, as well as bananas, wood pellets and wind energy units.

Now the nation’s third-most-populous state, with 23 million residents, Florida also receives 135 million annual visitors, making the Sunshine State one of the world’s most dynamic consumer markets.

Beginning where the Gulf of Mexico meets Tampa Bay and progressing north and then westward, here’s a roundup of the latest at Florida seaports along the Gulf of Mexico:

SeaPort Manatee

The Manatee County Port Authority’s SeaPort Manatee, closest U.S. deepwater seaport to the Panama Canal, continues to move strong volumes of a highly diverse range of cargos through its facilities near the entrance to Tampa Bay, while a recently adopted master plan update is helping guide future growth.

The flow of juices – SeaPort Manatee’s top import commodity – is getting a boost with signing of a five-year agreement calling for 24 vessel calls annually by Citrosuco North America Inc., which began bringing orange juice from Brazil into the Manatee County seaport more than three decades ago under the Juice Farms name. The port also receives orange and lemon juice from Mexico via cross-Gulf container services of SeaPort Manatee-headquartered World Direct Shipping, as well as on regular calls by juice-carrying vessels of Louis Dreyfus Co.

High-value cargos moving through SeaPort Manatee range from imports of luxury yachts to exports of liquefied natural gas heat exchangers made at the Air Products and Chemicals Inc. facility just across U.S. 41 from the port. Fuels, steel, forest products and bananas are among other leading commodities.

Port Tampa Bay

Steel, automobiles and dry bulk goods are among cargos propelling burgeoning tonnage at 5,000-acre Port Tampa Bay, billed as Florida’s largest seaport, which also serves as homeport for five cruise lines. Port officials promote ready access to the high concentration of distribution centers along the Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, encompassing more than 550 million square feet of space, with truck drivers able to make multiple daily roundtrips between the port and warehouses.

At Port Tampa Bay’s container terminal, operated by Ports America and called upon by direct ocean services from Asia and Latin America, additional paved storage has been developed, the gate complex has been significantly expanded and three more post-Panamax cranes have been added, bringing to five the terminal’s total number of such ship-to-shore gantries.

Port Tampa Bay has recently approved a pair of 20-year lease agreements, with extension options, with global ocean transportation and logistics solutions company Agunsa – one for operation of an 18-acre multipurpose terminal at Eastport and the other to develop a new transload warehouse distribution facility on 15 acres at Hookers Point.

Port of Port St. Joe

Along the Florida Panhandle, the Port of Port St. Joe has struggled to remain active since closure in the late 1990s of St. Joe Co.’s paper mill. Officials of the Port St. Joe Port Authority are continuing to seek funding for ship channel dredging and infrastructure improvements, including repair of the rail line serving the port.

Recent activities at the Port of Port St. Joe have included pre-delivery efforts by Eastern Shipbuilding to finish work on three new Staten Island Ferry boats built by the company about 40 miles away in Panama City.

The last significant cargo shipment from the Port of Port St. Joe was in 2021, when a load of woodchips was dispatched to Honduras.

Port Panama City

Situated near the center of the Florida Panhandle, Port Panama City is enjoying record cargo activity, driven by rising levels of exports of biomass wood pellets and forest products and such key imports as lumber and steel, while the port’s container trade volumes to and from Mexico remain steady.

Port Panama City recently completed a 20,000-ton-capacity storage dome to support growth in exports of wood pellets and is on schedule to finish its next phase of container terminal expansion in 2025, as port officials look to enhance capabilities for serving markets of Northwest Florida, as well as Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

In late 2023, the Port of Panama City was awarded an $11.25 million U.S. Department of Transportation Port Infrastructure Development Program competitive grant toward construction of a 200,000-square-foot, on-dock warehouse at the port’s East Terminal. That facility is to join a 260,000-square-foot warehouse already in place at the terminal, the initial $66 million phase of which began operations in 2020. Also, the permitting process is proceeding for bulkhead and turning basin extension work at the East Terminal.

Port of Pensacola

Located at the northwest tip of the Florida Panhandle, the Port of Pensacola, owned by the City of Pensacola, is broadening its already very-varied range of activities while also boosting its cargo volumes, focusing primarily on such crucial commodities as GE Wind Energy components, aggregate materials and bulk cement.

Beyond cargo activities, the Port of Pensacola is home to an oyster hatchery and multiple vessel-building and marine maintenance facilities and is set to soon welcome a significant new development – a $15 million Maritime Center of Excellence, advancing thanks to a pair of state grants and $8.5 million from Triumph Gulf Coast, a fund related to recovery from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that took place in 2010.

The Maritime Center of Excellence is scheduled for completion by year’s end, when the New York Yacht Club American Magic sailing team is slated to return from competing in the 37th America’s Cup, to be held from August through October off Barcelona, Spain. The center is to occupy a new 64,000-square-foot facility that is being designed to transform the port’s Warehouse No. 10.