A 12-year, $392 million project to deepen the Delaware River to allow larger ships to call at the Port of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Port of Wilmington, Delaware is scheduled to be completed shortly by Oak Brook, Illinois-based Great Lakes Dredge & Dock.
The project, which began in 2008, has increased the depth of the 103-mile main shipping channel between Philadelphia and the Atlantic Ocean from 40 to 45 feet.
In anticipation of completion of the project the Port of Philadelphia acquired a second set of super post-Panamax container cranes last year that have been installed at its Packer Avenue Marine Terminal while a new containerized auto shipping center with storage for 1,200 vehicles was opened in December.