Officials at the Plaquemines Port in Louisiana plan to develop an intermodal container shipping terminal along the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, a move that would increase competition with the Port of New Orleans, which is about 20 miles away.
American Patriot Holdings, a Miami-based marine industry firm with a satellite office in New Orleans, announced the initiative March 29 with the Plaquemines Port Harbor and Terminal District, which runs the port facility. At this early planning stage, the project's cost — or timeline — is unclear.
The plan calls for developing a logistics system for vessel operations, including local deep-draft operations and multiple upriver terminals, initially planned for the Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis areas.
If the port is built on 4,200 acres, it would be the southern-most full-service port operation on the river, officials said, and offer full intermodal service by way of the river, railroad and highway.
“We’re building a new, modern technology port from the ground up where berthing depths exceed 60 feet and with the capability to accommodate the new Panamax vessels coming through the widened and deepened Panama Canal,” said Sandy Sanders, Plaquemines Port's executive director.
The facility would complement a planned $8.5 billion facility to liquefy and export natural gas, which is being proposed by Washington, D.C.-based Venture Global LNG on a 632-acre site that also is owned by the Port Harbor and Terminal District.
That project, in the works since late 2014, is scheduled to be built in two phases, with a final export capacity of 22 million tons per year, the company said. Observers say it is the latest sign that Louisiana's industrial renaissance isn't confined solely to the still-booming Lake Charles and Baton Rouge regions.
The container port will have the capacity to dock vessels as large as 20,000 20-foot equivalent units — a measure of cargo capacity for containerized shipping, officials said.
“We are moving in the right direction entering the container markets, which will aid in diversifying our economy,” Plaquemines Parish President Amos Cormier said.
Both sides recently completed a "pre-feasibility" study and found that the project offered enough value that it could attract customers. Now, they're making that case to investors, terminal operators and other potential stakeholders to help advance their effort.
State officials are "fully supportive of strategic steps by the Port of Plaquemines to create an intermodal container terminal that can complement our existing system of coastal, deepwater and inland ports, and the logistics operations at those ports," Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Don Pierson said March 29, adding that the state is "poised to capture an increasing share of waterborne commerce, including container cargo."
