Posted on June 25, 2025
In 2024 the Port of Baltimore overcame a great deal to post the second-best year on record. And out of the gate in the first quarter of 2025, the Port of Baltimore continued its impressive performance. However, the Port is battling headwinds of tariffs and other regulatory challenges.
For eleven long weeks in 2024 the Fort McHenry main ship channel in Baltimore was closed with debris from the allision of the MV Dali with the Francis Scott Key Bridge. That’s an eventful eleven weeks. The Port of Baltimore didn’t have full access to the piers and terminals that are the very heart of what Maryland Governor Wes Moore calls “one of Maryland’s leading economic generators.”
Diversions and inventive re-routings were the order of the day as the port-community responded to the crisis with an “all hands on deck” approach to each logistics problem.
And in a remarkably short period, the 700-foot wide and 50-foot-deep Fort McHenry Federal channel was cleared of debris and the Port of Baltimore was again fully reopened for business on June 12, 2024.
The Baltimore Rebound
After removing around 50,000 tons of debris from the Patapsco River, the Port of Baltimore rapidly ramped up. Although the loss of the Interstate 695 connection across the river forced considerable rerouting of vehicle traffic within the Port area, the terminals themselves — especially for Ports America Chesapeake’s Seagirt Container Terminal — began making up for lost time… and revenue.
It is worth noting that prior to the collision and collapse of the bridge, the Port was likely on its way to a record-breaking year in 2024. And if anything, following the reopening of the channel the cargo handling pace quickened and the results for 2024 were surprisingly strong — so strong as to be the second-best year on record.
The combined Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore’s state-owned public and private marine terminals handled 45.9 million tons of cargo in 2024, making it the second-best ever year after 2023 when the port handled a record 52.3 million tons. More than 25.5 million of the nearly 46 million tons of cargo was handled during the second half of 2024, amounting to more than 55% of the Port’s total cargo haul for the year. And the total cargo in 2024 amounted to a value of $62.2 billion, third-most in the Port’s history. Baltimore also ranked second for salt and exported coal. Overall, the Port of Baltimore finished 10th nationally for total cargo and 11th for dollar value among US ports.
However, the 74-day interruption in ship calls to the Port did have an impact on container volumes in 2024. In 2023 the Port set a record 1.26 million TEUs and seemed poised to break that record in 2024. With the channel closed as no water access to Seagirt terminal, the box volumes were an estimated 741,215 TEUs (down 41% from 2023) — a good year but around 225,000 TEUs off the anticipated volumes.
Rolling with Ro/Ro
The Port of Baltimore is often considered to be the crème-de-la-crème of Ro/Ro ports in the US. Unlike many Ro/Ro ports, Baltimore shifts a great deal of inbound imported cars and trucks but also has a diverse mix of other freight ranging from High & Heavy (HH) loads like wind turbine components to farm equipment, and construction machinery. And in 2024 the Port ranked first in the US handling 848,628 tons of Ro/Ro farm and construction machinery. Remarkably, even with the disruption, the Port of Baltimore also handled 749,799 cars and light trucks in 2024, for the first time ranking second in the US, behind Brunswick, Georgia [see Debra Phillip article page 26]
The Jacksonville-based auto processor AMPORTS, which is the largest auto processor in the Port of Baltimore, announced in June the launch of its new stevedore operation at the Atlantic and Chesapeake Terminals in Baltimore. This follows the January acquisition of Red Hook Terminals Maryland, LLC which operates as Baltimore Port Terminal (BPT). According to AMPORTS the new services are a “strategic expansion strengthening AMPORTS’ presence on the East Coast.” This wasn’t the only move that the auto processor made in Baltimore. In February AMPORTS announced its partnership with CSX, in which it would support “CSX’s container transport operations at its Atlantic Terminal in Baltimore, Maryland, providing expert port logistics to ensure the seamless movement of cargo through the facility during the Howard Street Tunnel (HST) construction project.” Under this agreement, CSX will manage transportation, while AMPORTS will provide handling services for containers at the Atlantic Terminal.
And while this is not strictly an auto-processor’s role, it is part of the strategic connection that AMPORTS is developing with rail partners. This is the third rail partnership that AMPORTS has signed. AMPORTS handles roughly half of Baltimore’s vehicles at its three facilities or around 350,000-400,000 vehicles a year.
Digging Away to Double-Stack: Howard Street Tunnel Project
No project, apart from the re-building of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, is as important to the Port and City of Baltimore as the $293 million, Howard Street Tunnel (HST) project. When complete the project will enable full double-stacked container trains to connect from Seagirt Terminal in Baltimore into the CSX network reaching into the key Midwest markets. The link enhances Baltimore’s position as the “western” most major port on the East Coast.
But to do so, engineers must increase the vertical clearance in the 129-year-old, 1.7-mile-long Howard Street Tunnel and address 22 additional obstructions along the corridor between Baltimore and Philadelphia.
The challenge of the project was to increase CSX’s Howard Street Tunnel and the adjacent Mount Royal Avenue Tunnel from approximately 19-feet to 21-feet, and meanwhile increasing the lifespan without building a new tunnel. To do this, the engineers proposed to excavate and lower the track, “replacing the tunnel’s current floor and underlying brick with modern precast concrete sections.”
On October 28th 2024, a temporary route was opened as clearance improvements at rail bridges north of Baltimore were completed, providing CSX the opportunity to operate double-stack rail service to the Port, Maryland Port Administration (MPA) Executive Director Jonathan Daniels commented at the time, “Adding double stack capabilities to and from the Port of Baltimore allows us to take our container business to another level and puts us on a more level playing field with our competitors.”
In February this year [2025], CSX announced that “with the removal of rail spikes, marking the next phase of work on the Howard Street Tunnel Project.”
Currently the work on lowering the tunnel floor is underway and a diversion is being used to link hi/lo double-stack trains Seagirt to the CSX network.
The reconstruction work on the tunnel is due to be completed in 2026.
The “Intrinsic” Value of Bulk
Although the Baltimore’s container business and Ro/Ro figures attract a lot of ink, it is easy to argue that bulk and breakbulk cargo are equally essential to the Port of Baltimore’s tonnage success, resulting in the Port’s total of 45.9 million tons and an eighth place ranking nationally in 2024.
A deeper dive into the Port numbers reveals just how important bulk and breakbulk commodities are to the Port. In 2024 facilities in the Port handled 11,945,000 short tons of bulk and general cargo. As might be expected with the channel closure, the numbers were down – 22% from the 15,250,000 tons the Port processed in 2023. What is surprising is just how many tons of export bulk and general cargo are regularly handled in Baltimore. In 2024 the Port posted 33,909,000 million tons of bulk and general cargo exports. While the tally was off – 8.5% from the 37,075 million handled in 2023, the measure was far less the -22% on the import side.
And it looks like 2025 could shake out to be a good year for bulk/breakbulk cargo in Baltimore, despite the roller coaster of tariff issues. Tim Kassel, Executive Vice President of Canton Port Services, a company that provides stevedoring, warehousing and third-party facilities management services largely for the bulk and breakbulk sector in the Port of Baltimore, said of the current business environment, “I think we are very fortunate to work in the bulk and break bulk business where the bulk goes smooth, regardless of controversy or market changes. These commodities like salt and fertilizer, they must move no matter what. We’ve been having a pretty great year so far. I mean, really, ever since the channel opened, we’ve been moving material.”
And the bulk commodities moving through the Port often play an outsized role to their dollar value. As Kassel points out, “There’s intrinsic values to these cargoes that can’t necessarily be measured in a very simple economic impact study. If you don’t have the salt near the port in the mid-Atlantic in wintertime and you get an exceptional winter, you’re not going to be able to refill. You can’t truck it from out of state within a timeframe to be ready for the next storm. Really the same with fertilizer too. It’s got to be when the transportation costs have to be controlled, and the only way to do that is to keep it [the commodity] close.”
Port Challenges in 2025…And Beyond
The Port of Baltimore is like all US ports facing the combined challenges of dealing with tariffs and other regulatory issues like the proposed SHIPS act (see Ro/Ro section for more details). The combination of the two could severely damage the Port’s vital Ro/Ro business — although it is too early to tell exactly what the impacts will be as the situation is still very fluid. Equally the tariffs could eventually take their toll on box cargo, as has been the case with the Port of Los Angeles.
Also like many other US East Coast ports, the Port of Baltimore waterfront industrial properties are coming under increasing pressure. With waterfront real estate booming, real estate demand, especially in the Mid-Atlantic range and Northeast has endangered irreplaceable industrial waterfront. Going forward balancing these pressures against economic goals will be a challenge.
