Top 25 North American Ports
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For carriers, terminals are typically stable and profitable assets made more attractive by their own volumes, as well as priority berthing and cargo handling rates, making those ports inherently advantageous.
The natural strategic alignment between carriers and terminals is why carrier-controlled facilities go back years. At New York-New Jersey, such operations go back to the origins of container shipping in the late 1950s. Maersk has been a terminal operator at the port since the 1970s; OOCL controlled Howland Hook on Staten Island from 1995 to 2006.
The natural strategic alignment between carriers and terminals is why carrier-controlled facilities date back to the 1950s.
In pursuing terminal deals, carriers are not dissuaded by a 62 % pay increase for dockworkers as per the last contract ratified in early 2025, nor by their inability in the US market to collect terminal handling charges to offset what many carriers say are the highest longshore costs in the world.
Recent deals at New York-New Jersey that have been favorable to the port have caught the attention of ports in the Southeast.
In 2023, Global Container Terminals sold its Bayonne and Howland Hook terminals to CMA CGM, which outbid other carriers including Hapag-Lloyd. This committed the world’ s third-largest carrier to infrastructure improvements, normally the responsibility of the port, while CMA CGM also agreed to share detention and demurrage revenues with the port authority.
In December of last year, Macquarie renewed its lease for Maher terminals through 2063, agreeing to terms that include responsibility for upkeep of its wharves and berths, while committing to increase capacity at the largest East Coast port by volume. That lease renewal will set the stage for a formal sale process now getting underway, according to multiple sources.
While New York-New Jersey is in a strong negotiating position due to the lack of efficient alternatives to serve the large and wealthy New York metropolitan region, how much leverage other ports will have is an open question. For example, allowing an independent or carrier-controlled terminal operator free reign to compete for cargo could undermine states’ common user ports, yet curtailing their activities within lease terms could make those leases less attractive, sources told the Journal of Commerce.
Back in 2000, Maersk Sealand— attempting to bid out its East Coast hub operations— secured a favorable lease at New York-New Jersey, a controversial move that led to below-market lease rates. This defined New York- New Jersey’ s terms in return for approving the CMA CGM purchase: the port was determined to reverse those rates in recent negotiations and sale approvals. The port’ s insistence led to the 2014 collapse of a deal by APM Terminals to sell a stake in its Elizabeth terminal to Brookfield, an infrastructure investor.
At Savannah, GPA President and CEO Griff Lynch said in an interview that the port is exploring a“ partnership” approach whereby the GPA becomes a landlord, leasing the Savannah Container Terminal— coming online sometime in the early 2030s— to a third-party terminal operator, not an operator closely aligned to the port. The Port of Virginia had a similar approach where it owns the terminal operator, Virginia International Terminals.
There would be less concern about a third-party operator aggressively competing with Garden City, he said, if the overall result is more cargo, jobs and economic development opportunity for the state of Georgia.
email: peter. tirschwell @ spglobal. com
Carrier terminal operations could be coming to state-run Charleston( pictured) and Savannah. Daniel Wright98 / Shutterstock. com
26 Journal of Commerce | June 1, 2026 www. joc. com