International Maritime

New Charleston port CEO seeks to regain container‘ momentum’

By Mark Szakonyi

The Port of Charleston needs to reclaim its momentum after recent unsatisfactory growth and prioritize projects in the short term to feed expanded terminal capacity, the new head of the SC Ports Authority( SC Ports) says.

Micah Mallace, who served as Charleston’ s chief commercial officer before heading a regional logistics provider, rejoined SC Ports at a critical time. His predecessor, Barbara Melvin, exited following cost overruns of the port’ s yet-to-be-completed on-dock rail connection.

“ It is very clear to us that in order to achieve above-market growth, we need a momentum change,” Mallace told the Journal of Commerce in an interview Oct. 27.“ We have to get extra aggressive in the services that we offer, extra customer-focused and white glove in the way in which we work with our customers, both [ beneficial cargo owners ] and shipping lines alike.”

Charleston’ s laden volume growth has lagged the US East Coast average over the last five years on a compound average basis, expanding 4.7 % while the wider market expanded 7.3 %, according to PIERS, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global.

While Mallace’ s predecessors, including Jim Newsome, rightly made big bets on infrastructure to expand capacity, the port now needs to focus on growing volumes and strengthening its cargo base, Mallace said. SC Ports is focused on completing the Navy Base Intermodal Facility project, he said.

The $ 782 million project, which was once slated to open later this year, will cost $ 232 million more than estimated. Some $ 28 million in siding work needs to be completed so that Norfolk Southern Railway will join CSX Transportation in serving the facility. It is unclear who will be responsible for the extra costs.

Reviewing new investments

SC Ports is currently reviewing $ 1 billion worth of planned projects, including investments in berths to serve container-on-barge services. Mallace said that while Charleston had lost market share of intermodal discretionary cargo in recent years, the marine terminals were operating well and volumes at inland ports are rising. Intermodal rail lifts at Inland Port Greer hit a record high, jumping 9.6 % year over year in fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30.

“ We have to kind of get back to the way we used to grow,” Mallace said.“ For a 10-year period [ 2009 – 18 ], we were the fastest-growing port in the US, [ and ] that was born out of being especially customer-focused and especially aggressive in how we deliver solutions for our customers.”

He noted that, years ago, SC Ports secured an unnamed major retailer by doing the near impossible: delivering specialized transloaded capacity in just six months by creating a temporary facility, affectionately known as Dockzilla. SC Ports pulled it off, and now the retailer has a long-term facility lease off terminal.

“ We are going to use the heft of what we have at our disposal, whether that is our real estate, our acreage, our operating considerations or balance sheet,” Mallace said.“ We are going to back projects that we can offer exceptional service for momentum-changing opportunities.”

Container volumes through Charleston, including empties, expanded just 3 % in the most recent fiscal year, Mallace said on Oct. 28 at the annual State of the Port event. However, the port is growing North Asia volumes at a faster pace than its South Atlantic peers, expanding volumes 9 % in its most recent fiscal year compared with a 2 % volume decline for the region.

The port also expanded the number of weekly services 16 % year over year in fiscal 2025 and doubled the number of weekly services to India to six.

email: mark. szakonyi @ spglobal. com

SC Ports is reviewing $ 1 billion in planned projects in and around Charleston( pictured). Daniel Wright98 / Shutterstock. com

18 Journal of Commerce | December 1, 2025 www. joc. com