Pensacola 



The Port of Pensacola is located on a 33.2-ha (82-acre) site situated 

 on the north shore of Pensacola Bay in Escambia County. The channel to the 

 gulf is 35 ft deep and 800 ft wide. Other means of access to the port are the 

 Intracoastal Waterway, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, the Louisville and 

 Nashville Railroad, an Interstate Highway (I-IO), and the Pensacola Regional 

 Airport. 



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 The covered cargo storage capacity in 1976 was about 357,100 ft . Ship 



berthing facilities included 2,930 ft of public deepwater wharves maintained 



at a 33-ft depth, and 3,000 ft of public shallow-water wharves. Privately 



operated wharves added an additional 4,495 ft of berthing space. 



Estimates of the throughput cargo handling capacity (normal daily cargo 

 volume based on a 40 hr work week) for the Ports of Pensacola and Panama City 

 were made by the Florida Waterport Systems Study (Florida Department of 

 Transportation 1978a). These estimates utilized port labor and equipment 

 productivity relationships provided by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Federal 

 Maritime Administration, and assumed a normal work week of 5 days and a rate 

 of berth occupancy of 50%. 



Estimates are made in break bulk, dry bulk, liquid bulk, and general 

 cargo categories of shipment. Break bulk refers to cargo in a vessel that can 

 be counted by unit (e.g., tractors). Dry bulk and liquid bulk refer to bulk 

 cargo carried in specially designed ships, and general cargo refers to any 

 commodity shipped in boxes, crates, or other packaging (Olsen 1981). Esti- 

 mated throughput capacities for Port Pensacola are shown in Table 1. The 

 limiting capacity for break bulk cargo at Pensacola was due to the rail stor- 

 age transfer limitation of 463,000 tons per year. 



Table 1. Average annual throughput capacity in tons for the Port of Pensacola 

 in 1960-78 (Florida Department of Transportation 1978a). 



Cargo Capacity 



Break bulk cargo 



ship/apron transfer 902,000 



rail /storage transfer 463,000 



covered storage 609,000 



Liquid bulk 



petroleum, sulphur 1,000,000 



Dry bulk 



various 150,000 



Examination of the Port of Pensacola' s overall freight tonnage in 1960- 

 1978 indicates that it is a growing port with substantial increases in ship- 

 ping volume (Table 2). In 1975, Pensacola' s volume of waterborne commerce was 

 2,262,000 short tons, about 2.8% of the tonnage handled by all Florida ports. 



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