Page 51: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Q4 2015)

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REGIONAL FOCUS: U.S. GULF COAST

Port of New Orleans Supports 160,500 jobs

Revenue at the deep-draft Port of New Orleans has swelled 60 percent since Katrina closed the facility for awhile in 2005. Revenue expanded from $38.9 million in FY2006 to $62.4 million in FY2015. The port managed to open less than a month after Katrina struck in August 2005, and by the start of 2006 its activity had returned to pre-storm levels.

Heavily traf? cked commodities that keep the port humming include imported steel, natural rubber and coffee; nonferrous metals; exported chemicals; and project cargo and heavy-lift cargo, port spokesman Matt Gresham said in October. The port’s fastest-growing activities involve containerized cargo, along with packaging and transloading of exports, especially plastics and poultry. Bulk shipments can be reloaded into containers.

The port supports 160,500 job locally and statewide. And of that, its rapidly growing, cruise business generates 8,129 jobs. The port has allocated more than $100 million to capital improvements since 2012, and hopes to expand its Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal to an annual capacity of 1.6 million TEUs or twenty-foot equivalent-unit containers, from 490,526 TEUs in 2014. Chiquita, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and others operate out of the Napoleon terminal. “In the last year, refrigerated cargoes, particularly bananas and poultry, have shown signi? cant growth,”

Gresham said. Chiquita Brands International moved its shipping operations back to New Orleans in October 2014 after 40 years in Gulfport, Miss. In 2013, the port opened the Gulf Gateway Terminal, receiving crude oil by rail. “GGT brought new maritime and rail activity to the Elaine Street Wharf, which had been vacant for a long time,”

Gresham said. Signi? cantly, at the center of the bustling Lower Mississippi River, the port is connected to inland markets and Canada by 14,500 miles of waterways, six class-1 railroads and an interstate highway system. Its exports and imports are sustained by a network of ocean carrier services.

Images: Tracie Morris Schaefer, courtesy Port of New Orleans www.maritimeprofessional.com Maritime Professional 51 | | 50-63 Q4 MP2015.indd 51 11/18/2015 9:10:55 AM