New transload facility to feed Port of Charleston

A new company called Sea Pac plans to build a 1.5 million-square-foot facility in Ladson, S.C. for transloading bulk shipments of plastic pellets into containers for export, according to the South Carolina Department of Commerce.    Sea Pac LLC is building a $32 million, 1.5 million-square-foot facility in Ladson, S.C. for transloading bulk shipments of plastic pellets into containers for export, the South Carolina Department of Commerce announced Monday.
   The 107-acre, undeveloped site is located on U.S. Highway 78, and will have a rail spur for inbound shipments. Containers will then be trucked about 20 miles to the nearby Port of Charleston.
   The startup company said it plans to complete the first 400,000 to 650,000-square-foot building by mid-2017. The facility will initially create 50 new jobs and more than 200 within five years.
   The South Carolina Ports Authority has targeted plastic pellets as a potential growth market for Charleston. The pellets are used to make consumer goods such as milk jugs, toys and cars.
   The supply of plastic pellets is increasing along the Gulf coast as a boom in domestic oil production spurs petrochemical manufacturers to build more production facilities to take advantage of the cheap resource. SCPA Chief Executive Officer Jim Newsome has said that shippers are ready to ship pellets by rail to the East Coast because Houston does not have enough regular ship services to Europe and Asia to handle all the volume, and because they want to diversify their international gateways.
   Newsome wants to bring more transload facilities to the Charleston area and make containerized shipments of plastic pellets and agricultural commodities possible. The port authority is helping businesses find large, low-cost land tracts in the state that would be suitable for transloading facilities.