Philadelphia’s Tioga terminal evolves with market

Joseph Bonney, Senior Editor | Nov 28, 2016 2:46PM EST

A train is unloaded at the Tioga Marine Terminal, which can handle containers as well as breakbulk and bulk shipments.

A $12 million infusion of state money will help Philadelphia’s Tioga Marine Terminal continue nearly a half-century of adaptation to changes in shipping markets.

“We’ve gone through many market cycles,” said Robert Palaima, president of Delaware River Stevedores, which operates the northeast Philadelphia terminal. “We’re pleased that we’re able to continually reinvent ourselves and provide value.”

Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced funding for Tioga as part of a $300 million port investment that will go primarily for upgrades to the port’s Packer Avenue terminal, the port’s main container-handling facility.

Improvements at Tioga will include renovating the terminal’s main on-dock warehouse to handle more wood pulp imports, converting a second warehouse into a food-grade warehouse, improving rail tracks to increase capacity, and adding a second mobile harbor crane.

Palaima said the projects will help Tioga build on its diverse cargo niches including wood pulp, steel, plywood, metals, and project and heavy-lift shipments. “We’ve gone through the different market cycles, and we want to be ready for the peaks as well as the valleys,” he said.

The terminal encompasses 116 acres with five berths. For years, its main business was Chilean fruit imports. More recently, Tioga has focused on breakbulk imports of Brazilian wood pulp. “It’s a good business for us, strategically and operationally, with good prospects,” Palaima said.

Tioga’s strength is its versatility, Palaima said. In its early years, the terminal handled container services such as CSAV and Crowley American Transport. With two ship-to-shore gantry cranes, Tioga still can serve container ships, but in recent years the focus has been on breakbulk, bulk, and project cargoes. Rickmers Linie ships call the terminal regularly on the multipurpose carrier’s round-the-world service.

Delaware River Stevedores leases Tioga from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority. DRS is owned by Ports America and SSA Marine. The company also operates at terminals across the Delaware River at Camden, New Jersey, and at the nearby Port of Wilmington, Delaware.

Steel is an important commodity at all three of the Philadelphia-area terminals where DRS operates. That business has softened with the overall steel market, but it hasn’t disappeared. This month, for example, the Camden terminal handled a 40,000-ton load of steel coils — “a nice holiday present,” Palaima said.