As the chemical industry continues to boom in Louisiana and the Gulf South region, SEACOR AMH has created a new container-on-barge shuttle service from Baton Rouge to export those products via the Port of New Orleans.
As 10/12 Industry Report details in a feature from the latest quarterly issue, the company planned to bring the container-on-barge shuttle service to the Lower Mississippi River Waterway this spring.
The initial service will operate with one tug boat and up to six barges at once, the maximum number that can be moved at once through the Port Allen lock near Baton Rouge. SEACOR AMH already has facilities in the New Orleans area and has opened a terminal along the Port Allen Canal. Plans include the installation of intermodal equipment such as chassis, trucking and container handling equipment at Port Allen to move empties and spreaders.
SEACOR AMH, which is experienced marine transportation, brings its experience on the Tenn-Tom Waterway to Louisiana. It is part of SEACOR Holding Inc.’s Inland River Services group, which includes SCF Marine Inc.
The group owns and operates modern river transportation equipment—including covered and open hopper barges, tank barges, inland river towboats and smaller harbor boats. It provides ancillary services along the U.S. Inland River Waterways and operates marine equipment on the Parana-Paraguay and the Magdalena river systems in South America.
“When we learned of the increasing volume coming out of Baton Rouge from the chemical sector we decided a shuttle service would be complementary to our ongoing services on the Mississippi River,” says SEACOR AMH Vice President Richard Teubner. “We developed the terminal operations and contractual agreements with port operations in New Orleans and Baton Rouge to get the customers interested.”
The customer interest was indeed there, as chemical companies expect to double and even triple shipping volume. There are 88 refineries located within a 100-mile radius of New Orleans and, according to Louisiana Economic Development, more than $6.4 billion in improvements at refineries and petrochemical plants in Louisiana are planned over the next two years.
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