In May of this year, Diamond State Ports Corporation (DSPC), the national entity that owns the port, transferred Wilmington operating concessions to privately held Enstructure LLC, which is engaged in bulk and bulk terminal and logistics operations along the East Coast and Gulf Coast. The franchise will run until 2078.

The new operator the Port of Wilmington, Delaware, has committed to spend $21 million to develop a new 1 million teu container Edgemoor terminal, in return for which Enstructure will assume up to $20 billion in secured debt from GT USA and pay the DSPC $10000 per year during the term of the concession, adjusted for inflation. Enstructure will not be subject to container throughput charges or similar quantity agreements.

's proposed Edgemoor terminal will provide berths for two new Panamax vessels with a channel depth of five feet. At the same time, the term sheet of the Enstructure concession states that the DSPC can also contribute an additional 25 acres of land to the existing plot of about 45 acres of Edgemoor Terminal.
In addition to the Edgemoor investment, Enstructure said it would invest another $45 million in capital improvements to Wilmington's existing container terminal, which handles about 6 million TEUs per year.

Wilmington's transfer of operational control marks the end of GT USA's precarious tenure at the port, which began in 2018 when its parent company, Emirates Port Operator Gulftainer, won the concession.

then, Gulftainer pledged to invest more than $50 billion in Wilmington over the next decade, including building a Edgemoor terminal by 2025. However, GT USA, which invested only $880000 in Wilmington while in port, said it faced higher-than-expected operating and legacy costs.

The DSPC's transfer resolution said GT USA struggled until last year to obtain financing for the company's new terminal, but it "did not provide a viable long-term financing plan for the expansion nor did it properly move forward with the Edgemoor project."

Enstructure said it was looking forward to working with the DSPC on Edgemoor projects. The project will expand Wilmington's presence on the East Coast as an important port city and bring significant economic benefits to the state. Enstructure also agreed that its existing operations in Wilmington, including bulk and bulk handling, trucking, transshipment and warehousing services, would be managed separately from the port's operations.

freight forwarding network