Enstructure takes over management of Port of Wilmington

The Port of Wilmington, Delaware, which was founded in 1923, acts as a full-service deepwater port and marine terminal handling approximately 400 vessels annually with a yearly import/export cargo tonnage of more than 6 million tons.  

Located at the confluence of the Delaware and Christina Rivers, 65 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, the port is the busiest terminal on the Delaware River, producing $436 million in business revenue for the state and the region. It’s also responsible for nearly 6,000 jobs and generates $41 million in annual taxes.

The Port of Wilmington is owned by the Diamond State Port Corporation (DSPC), a corporate entity of the State of Delaware, and is a major mid-Atlantic gateway for a wide variety of maritime cargoes and trade.

In early June, Enstructure, which acquired Port Contractors in 2021, took over management of the port from long-time manager Gulftainer, under a deal worked out with the state-owned DSPC.

“The DSPC board is very pleased about our new partnership with Enstructure, which already has a presence in Delaware at the port,” said Delaware Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock. “They understand the need to make capital investments in the existing Port of Wilmington that will maintain our strong customer base, allowing business to grow and creating more jobs in the future. Enstructure will also pursue the development of a new terminal at Edgemoor, something we have been promised for years. Having a long-term investment strategy for Wilmington and Edgemoor has always been the goal for the DSPC. We are very encouraged that Enstructure will meet that goal successfully.”

Not surprisingly, The Port of Wilmington is one of the top U.S. gateways for imports of fresh fruit and the No. 1 port of entry for Chilean winter fruit, handling Chilean table grapes, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, apples, pears, cherries, berries and more. In fact, this past winter, it

received the first breakbulk shipment of Chilean winter fruit for the ninth-consecutive year. The Port of Wilmington normally receives more than 16 million cases of fresh Chilean fruit annually.

Both the Dole Fresh Fruit Co. and Chiquita Fresh North America use the port as their mid-Atlantic distribution hub, and each use the port twice weekly throughout the year for bananas and other tropical fruit to supply 200 million U.S., and Canadian consumers.

The port is also the top for Moroccan clementine imports into the U.S., as well as Argentine apples and pears, Peruvian grapes and kiwifruit from New Zealand. 

All produce is stored in the port’s six refrigerated, state-of-the-art cold storage warehouses until its distribution to consumers. With its 800,000 square feet of dock side cold storage in six warehouses, the Wilmington port is one of the largest refrigerated warehouse terminals in the United States.  

Over the last two years, the port has integrated a number of new features to modernize and improve capabilities. For instance, last year it unveiled a $38 million stacked container storage system which features five new — all electric — rubber tyred gantry cranes, which have replaced old diesel run cargo handling equipment, thereby cutting overall emissions on the port. This earned the port the International Innovator Award at December’s World Trade Center, Delaware award ceremony.