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26 THE JOURNAL OF COMMERCE www.joc.com APRIL 2017 ship calls to weekly next year. The slabs are transported by rail to mills in western Pennsylvania and in Indiana for rolling into sheets for use by the automotive and other industries. Volume through the terminal could total more than 1.3 million tons this year and exceed 2 million tons in 2018, said Kevin Castagnola, CEO and executive director of the port corporation. The Paulsboro Marine Terminal was years in the making. The terminal was built on a brownfield site that BP used until the late 1990s for an oil tank farm. Use of the site for a terminal was first discussed in 2002. Five years later, BP agreed to pay for environmental remediation of the site, the fund the start of feasibility studies, and to transfer the lease for development by the port corporation. South Jersey Port Corp. issued $175 mil- lion in bonds to finance the project. Ground was broken for construction in 2009, but work was delayed by the weak economy. In 2014, South Jersey Port Corp. selected Holt Logistics Corp. to operate the terminal. Holt a lso operates a ter mina l at nearby Gloucester City, New Jersey, for refrigerated and breakbulk cargo, and the Packer Avenue container terminal in Philadelphia. At Paulsboro, Holt has made an initial $12 million investment in two mobile cranes, along with trucks and other cargo-handling equipment. "This is the first modern port to be built along the Delaware River in more than 50 years, and a lot of people did not believe this day would ever come … This port is a game-changer for our region," said New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney, who was among political and business speakers at the ter mina l's opening ceremony. The terminal has 21,000 feet of new rail track, an 850-foot wharf, and plans for a 1,600-foot wharf extension that would provide two or three additional berths. A $23 million bridge and roadway connects the terminal to Interstate 295. Paulsboro features a loop rail track and center loading track that can accom- modate three or four 75-car unit trains, and allow a train to be pulled out of the yard while others are being loaded. No schedule has been set for the termi- nal's second phase, which Castagnola said likely would require three or four years of construction and could cost more than $150 million. South Jersey Port Corp. also operates the Broadway and Balzano terminals at Camden, and the Salem bulk terminal at Salem, New Jersey. The Camden termi- nals handle a variety of cargoes, including steel, project cargoes, cocoa beans, scrap metal, and cement slag. l Contact Joseph Bonney at joseph.bonney@ihsmarkit.com and follow him on Twitter: @JosephBonney. SJPC STEEL VOLUMES SLIP Annual steel cargo at South Jersey Port Corp. terminals, in tons 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000 800,000 900,000 1,000,000 2016 2015 2014 2013 Source: South Jersey Port Corp.