Port officials throughout North America are hoping to see more traffic and bigger ships once the historic $5.3 billion Panama Canal expansion opens on June 26.
But as Business Report details in it a feature from its latest issue, Jay Hardman, who directs the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, is more interested in a potential project much closer to home: the deepening of the Mississippi River’s deep-draft shipping channel.
The two projects go “hand-in-hand,” he says.
As important as the Panama Canal expansion project is for the industry, Hardman says deepening the river is crucial to maximize the local impact. Port tenants such as Louis Dreyfus Commodities, which operates a grain elevator at the port, would love to use a deeper channel to the mouth of the river, as would any number of companies in the agriculture, petrochemical and energy sectors.
“The trucks and the ships just aren’t getting any smaller; they continue to get bigger,” Hardman says. “I think all the players on the deep-draft side (of the port) would have a keen interest in being able to load more cargo on the vessels.”
He’s not saying Louisiana ports won’t benefit from a wider and deeper Panama Canal. But to Hardman, the trip through the canal is sort of like a “bus route.”
Bigger ships can carry more cargo, so the ability to move larger ships through the Panama Canal will save shippers time and money.
But Mississippi River ports won’t benefit nearly as much from the change if the river isn’t deepened to accommodate those larger vessels. And over time, without a deeper channel, Louisiana ports might even fall behind their peers.
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