James City County businesses have easy access to three major marine terminals operated by the Virginia Port Authority: Newport News Marine Terminal, Norfolk International Terminals, and Portsmouth Marine Terminal. Hampton Roads is also home to APM / Maersk, the nation's first privately developed container terminal.
Currently, over 95% of the world's shipping lines call on the Port of Virginia, linking James City County to more than 250 ports in 1000 countries. The Port of Virginia contains a Foreign Trade Zone within its boundaries.
The Port of Virginia has 50-foot deep channels in an ice free harbor with some of the world's largest and fastest container cranes. The three marine terminals that compose the Port of Virginia handled more than one million containers in 2009.
Newport News Marine Terminal
Newport News, VA, 30 miles
Channel Depth 45 feet, in James River
- Pier B – 990 feet long on North side; 620 foot on South; 550 feet wide; three berths handling RO/RO cargo 34-foot aprons; 32 feet water depth; 33 feet offshore; 15-foot pier deck elevation.
- Pier C – North side 934-foot long by 540-foot wide; 184-foot aprons: handling breakbulk cargo (two PACECO cranes servicing); water depth 40 feet. South side 935-foot long by 540-foot wide; 184-foot aprons: handling RO/RO and container cargo (PACECO portainer crane & 182-LT)
- Storage Facilities-Container – Stacked capacity 790 containers; Chassis capacity 1210 containers; 43 acres open yard storage
- Storage Facilities-Covered – 394,000 square feet on piers; 256,000 square feet dry storage
- Highways Serving Port – Interstates 64 and 664 and US Route 17
- Railways Serving Port – Provided by CSX
- # of Freight Forwarders Serving Area: 52
- # of Import/Export Brokers Serving Area: 22
- Warehousing: 22
The Port of Virginia serves as a Foreign Trade Zone, including the 184-acre FTZ 20 at the Newport News Marine Terminal (25th Street & Warwick Boulevard; Newport News, VA, 23607).
Foreign Trade Zone Benefits include:No duty is charged on most waste and scrap from production in an FTZ.
- No duty is paid on re-exported merchandise.
- If foreign merchandise is sold domestically, no duty is paid until it leaves the zone or zones.
- If foreign merchandise is manufactured into a product with a lower duty rate, the lower duty rate applies on the foreign content when duty is paid.
- Merchandise in a zone may be stored, repackaged, manufactured, manipulated, destroyed, altered or changed.