Image by Random Thinking for Unsplash
The Port of Savannah is a crucial artery to U.S. trade even if the likes of L.A. and New York tend to monopolize the conversation. Despite it’s location in the Atlantic—more soothing for trade with Europe—the port has managed to send and receive 50% of tis cargo from Asia. All this while keeping a balanced profile of imports and exports and a considerable size when compared to other ports in the region. Thus, it should come as no surprise that, in 2023 it ranked as the 4th largest in North America and the U.S.—as well as the seconf largest in the U.S. East Coast.
Given its importance, we at Desteia put together a list of the most important statistics about the port and its true impact on the US economy.
Where Is the Port of Savannah Located?
The Port of Savannah consists of over 10,000 feet of continuous berth space that can be used by dozens of vessels a year—in fact, in 2023, the port recorded 1,815 port calls across its two terminals. The port itself is located next to the Savannah river, directly in front of the state border between Georgia and South Carolina, and just below six miles away from Savannah’s North Historic District. As far as total dimensions of the channel itself, the port has a total width of 500 ft.
How Many TEUs Can the Port of Savannah Handle?
The specific number of TEUs—a common metric for containers—handled by the Port of Savannah varies year to year. In our most recent report (The State of North American Ports by Desteia), we found that the port handled over 3.6 million TEUs in 2023 alone. Although, we should note, that, at the time of writing our report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had yet to release official figures for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023—at least in the data sets we considered in our research—, so we used a statistical approximation to better understand port dynamics.
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Over the last six years, the port exhibited mild variance across two periods of growth. The first, between 2018 and 2020, saw a growth rate of 9.2% in containers handled, as TEUs jumped from 3.3 million in 2018 to 3.7 million in 2020. Thereafter, with the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, we predicted a decrease in port activity across US ports, lowering TEUs handled to 3.3 million in 2021, before bouncing back to 3.69 million by 2023. Put together, these figures suggest a positive trend across a six year period despite potential setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In all, the port container handling capabilities grew by 9% in the examined period, which is little above the national average of 8.8% for those same years.
What Cargo Is Handled in the Port of Savannah?
The most recent data from the port of Savannah suggest a high variance in the types of goods it handles, although with a clear preference for some types of products. Looking just at exports, one notices that the ten largest categories of goods account for 87.39% of all containers handled at the port. The top position when it comes to exports is that of food-related products which, in 2023, accounted for over 197,000 containers—that’s roughly 15.5% of all exports for that year. Wood pulp came in a close second, with over 178,000 containers (14.06% of all exports) followed by automotive products (12.3%) and paper or paperboard materials (11.66%).
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Where Does the Port of Savannah Import and Export?
Given the port of Savannah’s location in the Atlantic sea, one could expect that the port of Savannah could serve as a natural connection between the U.S. and the European market. And such, at least, is initially the case, with European trade (both to Northern Europe and the Mediterranean) accounting for 23.4% of all containers handled at the port. However neither of the routes to Europe were the most important for Savannah. Such, at least, is what official data from the port suggests. As it turns out, the port’s main trade partners are located in Asia. Northeast Asia on its own accounts for 27.12% of all containers handled in the port—larger than the entirety of European trade put together. If, on top of that, we add routes to South East Asia and the Indian subcontinent, Asia then represents 49.84% of all trade with Savannah.
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Interestingly, imports and exports were evenly split in the port—at least for 2023. Currently, exports account for 49.7% of all activity at the port of Savannah, while imports make up the remaining 50.3%—a difference of less than a percentage point.
How Does the Port of Savannah Compare to Other Ports?
The port of Savannah is a point for U.S. commerce—both in terms of imports and exports as we saw above. In total, it handles 5.87% of all containers in North America, and little above 7.2% of all US trade—resulting in billions of dollars of revenue for the state of Georgia. As a result, we found that Savannah was the 4th largest port in the U.S. and in North America at large, comparable to the ports of New York and Vancouver—the latter of them in Canada. If it weren’t for New York, in fact, Savannah would be the largest U.S. port in the Atlantic Ocean. However, it is worth noting that Savannah—despite its relative size—is far from competing with the top three ports in the region. Its total TEUs in 2023 only accounted for about 42.81% of those handled by the port of Los Angeles (the largest in the US).