DE Terminal partners break ground at Port of Wilmington

Project partners, stakeholders, and state and local officials broke ground Sept. 14 on the Delaware Container Terminal (DCT), a marine container terminal scheduled to open in Wilmington, Delaware, in 2029. 

DCT is a public-private partnership between Enstructure, a privately owned marine terminal and logistics company, and the state of Delaware through the Diamond State Port Corporation (DSPC).

The Port of Wilmington is a full-service deepwater port and marine terminal handling more than 400 vessels and 6 million tons of cargo annually, including containers, perishable, bulk, roll on-roll off and various project cargos. The port is operated by Enstructure under a long-term concession agreement. 

Located at the former Edgemoor industrial site, DCT will improve access to regional, national and international supply chains while nearly doubling container-handling capacity along the Delaware River port complex, project officials said in a press release. 

At full scale, the terminal development will increase the physical capacity of the facility to accommodate larger vessels with a quay length of 2,700 feet and a depth of 45 feet. DCT is designed to accommodate container vessels with capacities of up to 16,000 TEUs, allowing 1.2 million TEUs to move through the terminal each year. DCT will have seven electric ship-to-shore gantry cranes and 24 electric rubber-tired gantry cranes to move container cargo.

DCT's proximity to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and New York will make it an efficient gateway to the global shipping industry along the Northeast Corridor within a less-congested section of the region, project officials said.

The $669 million project is funded via a $225 million investment by Enstructure and a $325 million investment from the state of Delaware, plus $119 million in federal grants via the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, awarded to the state of Delaware to deploy zero-emission port equipment at DCT through the EPA's Clean Ports Grant Program.

The Port of Wilmington is served by Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX.