By Paul Scott Abbott, AJOTFacility enhancements and service additions continue at ports along the Atlantic Coast of Florida, where trade with the Latin American and Caribbean region, particularly exports, has held up reasonably well despite the overall US economic downturn. Looking individually at Florida’s East Coast ports, beginning in the far northeast corner of the state and moving southward: PORT OF FERNANDINA The Port of Fernandina, operated by the Nassau Terminals unit of Kinder Morgan, has completed a $1.4 million rehabilitation of its two Hitachi container cranes, facilitating a productivity gain of between 15% and 20%. The port also has finished the $750,000 first phase of container yard paving and drainage improvements, with a similar second phase to be done later this year. A $600,000 project involving warehouse roof replacement and insulation work plus security and lighting installations is due to be completed by late March. The newest service addition at Fernandina is the monthly breakbulk liner operation of Mexico City-based MP Lines, bringing paper products and machinery to Panama and the West Coast of South America. Also added last year was Seatrade USA’s monthly breakbulk liner service to the West Coast of South America. Steel exports to Panama are expected to continue to rise as canal construction activity heats up. PORT OF JACKSONVILLE The biggest news thus far this year at Florida ports undoubtedly has been the opening of the first phase of the $250 million, 158-acre TraPac Container Terminal at the Jacksonville Port Authority’s Dames Point Marine Terminal. The opening was marked by the Jan. 12 arrival of the CMA CGM Virginia. France-based CMA CGM is among participants in the weekly East Coast-South China Express service of TraPac parent Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. of Japan and New World Alliance partners APL Ltd. of Singapore and Hyundai Merchant Marine of South Korea. JAXPORT’s role in east-west trade should get another significant boost in late 2011, when South Korea-based Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd. is slated to open a $300 million, 90-acre container terminal, its first dedicated East Coast operation. JAXPORT and Hanjin inked a 30-year agreement on Dec. 10. Both new terminals should benefit from a project to deepen the port’s shipping channel to 45 feet or more from the present 40 feet – a plan that is methodically advancing through federal processes. PORT CANAVERAL While much of the $213 million in projects currently under way at Port Canaveral entails enhancements to accommodate more increasingly large cruise vessels, infrastructure development at the Central Florida port also includes a $120 million fuel tank farm – representing the largest single investment in the port’s history. The Seaport Canaveral project is being undertaken by the Vitol Group, with headquarters in Switzerland and the Netherlands, and is to be in operation by October. The facility is to include 34 tanks with a total storage capacity at buildout of nearly 3.9 million barrels and annual throughput of as many as 46 million barrels. Also, Port Canaveral has recently completed a $40 million pier renovation project that has rebuilt and widened more than 1,000 linear feet of cargo berth space. PORT OF PALM BEACH At the Port of Palm Beach, where Manny Almira, former Port Everglades assistant director of business development, assumed the executive director reins in July, the $15.5 million Southgate complex has been completed, offering 40,000 square feet of available warehouse space. The port recently has added a 45-day, roll-on/roll-off service of Temis Line with the West African country of Angola and has become a shipping hub for Sevenstar Transport, a unit of the Netherlands-based Spliethoff Group. The Port of Palm Beach is leading efforts to encourage development of an inland port facility in economically challenged western Palm Beach County, south of Lake Okeechobee, some 40 miles west of the seaport. Discussions ar