By Jim Shaw
Ports along the Gulf Coast of Mexico are continuing to look
south to potential new container business to be generated by new locks at the
Panama Canal but bulk commodities such as coal, oil and gas are also driving
development. The sudden oil shale energy boom has rocked the petroleum
transporting industry, with the Port of Corpus Christi alone developing eight
new docks and 10 million barrels of new crude storage capacity to handle
Texas-produced Eagle Ford shale oil. At the same time Swiss energy trader Vitol
has selected the Port of Beaumont, Texas as the location for its new LPG export
terminal, while the Port of New Orleans has just inaugurated its Gulf Gateway
Terminal (GGT) to handle crude oil transshipment from rail to barge.
In the container sector the Port of Houston Authority (PHA)
has ordered four super-post-Panamax ship-to-shore cranes and three rubber-tire
gantry cranes from Finland’s Konecranes for its Barbours Cut and Bayport
terminals in a deal worth approximately $56 million. In Louisiana, AECOM
Technical Services has started the design of a new Mississippi River Intermodal
Terminal (MRIT), which will enhance container-to-rail movement at the Port of
New Orleans’ Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal. Breakbulk and unitized cargoes
are also expanding on the Gulf and Houston-based Intermarine has concluded an
$82 million sale-and-leaseback agreement for an expanded terminal handling
breakbulk and project cargoes on the Houston Ship Channel. At the same time, Alabama
Steel Terminals has cemented a deal with the Alabama State Port Authority
(ASPA) for the development of a $36 million steel handling facility at the Port
of Mobile.
The deepwater offshore sector is also generating port
development, particularly at Louisiana’s Port Fourchon where $75 million is
being spent to develop a third slip and open up an additional 280 acres of
waterfront property for the support of offshore supply vessel operations.
Mobile
Alabama’s Port of Mobile has been one of the Gulf Coast’s
more successfully diversified ports, handling containers as well as bulk and
breakbulk commodities. During its latest fiscal year it moved more than 25
million tons of cargo and nearly 200,000 TEUs of containers. More than half of
the port’s tonnage is handled at the McDuffie coal terminal, where exports have
increased five percent since the installation of new equipment last year that
converted an import-only berth into a combination import/export facility. The
port’s container traffic, moved largely through the APM facility at Choctaw
Point, has witnessed a 22 percent increase over the past year and is expected
to see another surge in 2015 when a new Intermodal Container Transfer Facility
(ICTF) is opened. Among breakbulk cargoes, steel posted a 26 percent increase
over the past fiscal year and in July the port approved a concession agreement
with Alabama Steel Terminals to develop a new $36 million steel coil handling
facility for the auto industry. To be served by rail, truck and barge, the
terminal will be constructed at Pier D2 and located on a 40-foot deep channel.
Alabama Steel Terminals, a joint venture between TriState
Maritime Services and the Richardson Group of Companies, will operate and manage
the facility, which will be built in two phases. The first phase will see
178,200 square feet of covered storage area built adjacent to 168,000 square
feet of open storage, with three 50-ton capacity overhead bridge cranes
installed. The second phase will add a 194,400-square-foot bay area equipped
with three additional 50-ton capacity overhead bridge cranes. James K. Lyons,
the port’s director and chief executive, said the entire facility should be
complete within two to three years.
Gulfport
West of Mobile, the Mississippi state port at Gulfport is
continuing to move forward with facility expansion after the devastation of
hurricane Katrina eight years ago. Almost wiped out by the hurricane, Gulfport
has been steadily rebuilding using approximately $600 million in federal relief
funds. The port has recently launched its West Pier Expansion Project (WPEP)
under the supervision of new port executive director Jonathan Daniels. In July,
Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont agreed to lease property on the pier for
another 30 years, with options to extend the agreement for up to 60 years. This
will provide a long-term anchor tenant for the expanded structure, which will
also support the operations of banana and produce importers Dole and Chiquita.
The port plans an estimated $80 million in improvements to
seven acres on the southern tip of the pier where DuPont will expand the number
of storage silos it maintains for imported ilmenite ore. The company will also
install a new conveyor system to handle the mineral product, which is used in
the manufacture of titanium dioxide, a pigment used in paint, paper and
plastics. DuPont will pay $57 million of the construction costs involved in its
portion of the project, due to be completed in 2016, while the port will pay $23
million and retain ownership of the complex.
Daniels noted that preliminary negotiations are also
underway with a potential new tenant for the pier but stressed that federal
relief funds will not be used for this customer nor the DuPont expansion.
New Orleans
On the Mississippi River the Port of New Orleans is planning
to double its annual container capacity to 1.6 million TEUs through the
build-out of the Napoleon Avenue Intermodal Terminal as well as the development
of an adjacent intermodal container transfer facility (ICTF). The Louisiana
port received a $16.7 million federal transportation grant last year for
improvements at Napoleon Avenue and the port’s Board of Commissioners recently
contracted AECOM Technical Services to begin design work on the intermodal
facility. The latter will be constructed on the site of an existing 12-acre
rail yard, which will be re-configured and modernized. Work is due to begin in
December with completion targeted for late 2014.
“The Port of New Orleans is the only US seaport with six
Class One railroads serving it,” observed the port’s President and CEO, Gary
LaGrange. “This project will facilitate the movement of marine and rail cargo,
stimulate international commerce and enhance safety all while reducing the
carbon footprint of the regional and national transportation systems.”
The Port, in partnership with the Louisiana Port
Construction and Development Priority Program, is matching a portion of the
federal grant to help build an adjacent 4-acre container marshaling yard. Local
contractor Hard Rock Construction was contracted this past summer to pave the
facility. In the long term, the port of New Orleans is seeking private funds
from interested terminal operators, shipping companies and private investment
groups to help it complete a planned $580 million full buildout of the Napoleon
Avenue terminal. Recent legislation signed by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal
has expanded tax incentives to entice such investment.
Beaumont
In Texas, Swiss energy trader Vitol has made its final
decision on a major LPG storage and export facility it plans to develop at the
Port of Beaumont. Vitol announced in February that it intended to have the
export terminal ready for business by 2014 but that date was extended into 2015
when Japanese energy company Itochu took a 34 percent stake in the project. In
partnership with Itochu, Vitol plans to scour gas storage caverns out of a
subterranean Texas salt dome in a $500 million project that will allow it to
process up to 100,000 barrels per day of propane and butane, giving it an
exporting capability of up to 3 million tons per year.
The two companies noted that the site, which has permits for
up to 30 million barrels of storage capacity, can easily be expanded in a
second phase of construction that would allow for the export of more than 6
million tons per year. The Port of Beaumont, which will be the loading center,
has been making more than $65 million in capital improvements to support
expanded cargo operations, including $28 million for new rail infrastructure
that will be composed of a new interchange yard and loop track.
In May, Enterprise Products Partners said it was expanding
its south Texas pipeline and storage network to better accommodate fuel
exports, including the loading of Panamax tankers at Beaumont and Aframax
vessels on the Houston Ship Channel. Enterprise wants to be able to accommodate
up to 11 very large gas carriers (VLGCs) per month on the Gulf as LPG export
volumes swell. Much of the gas will be going to Mexico and the Netherlands but
Japan is also viewed as a potential customer as it seeks to diversify supplies
it already receives from the Middle East.
Houston Boxes
The Gulf coast’s biggest container port, the Port of
Houston, has been gearing up for more box traffic once the Panama Canal
expansion project is completed in 2015. This past May, Houston ordered four
super-post-Panamax ship-to-shore (STS) cranes and three rubber-tire gantry
(RTGs) units from Finland’s Konecranes in a deal worth approximately $56
million.
The electric-powered STS cranes, to be the largest
Konecranes has ever built, will have a lifting capacity of 66 tons and will be
able to span 22 boxes across. To be semi-automated, they will also include such
technical features as a Ship Profiling System (SPS), a Trim/List/Skew system
and LED lights for improved eco-efficiency. The lifting machines will be
shipped to the port’s Barbours Cut Terminal in late 2014 and brought on line at
Wharf No. 1 during the first quarter of 2015.
The Barbours Cut facility has grown rapidly since opening in
1977 to become one of the premier box-handling facilities on the Gulf. Further
development plans are expected to see at least $700 million spent to modernize
and expand both its berths and equipment. The three RTGs will be delivered to
Houston’s Bayport Terminal, opened in 2007 as the port’s second container
facility, by the spring of next year and represent an amendment to an earlier
contact with Konecranes to provide eight RTGs to the Barbours Cut terminal.
Konecranes delivered its first RTGs to Houston in 2003 and at present the port
has nearly 50 Konecranes RTGs in its fleet.
Houston Breakbulk
In the breakbulk sector, Houston-based heavylift specialist
Intermarine has concluded the sale-and-leaseback of a breakbulk and project
cargo handling terminal on the Houston Ship Channel from an affiliate of
Lexington Realty Trust. The 25-year contract includes three ten-year renewal
options. Lexington said the average rent during the lease period would be
approximately 8.3 percent of the terminal’s purchase price of nearly $82
million. The sale/lease deal follows Intermarine’s decision to build a new
operations center on the main shipping channel at Houston close to the 95-acre
terminal it will be leasing.
The new building will house the shipowner’s entire
technical, operations and traffic teams. “This new operations center will
enable us to continue our plan of growth and expansion, but more importantly it
gets all of our operations, technical and traffic teams together in one
location,” said company CEO Al Stanley. The leased terminal has 2,055 feet of
berthing for deepsea ships as well as a 1,500-foot-long barge facility. This
will allow it to safely berth two of Intermarine’s largest heavylift vessels at
the same time while handling transshipment cargo to and from ports along the
intercoastal waterway.
Corpus Christi
In West Texas, the Port of Corpus Christi has found itself
riding a sudden oil boom, with crude shipments jumping from zero to 340,000
barrels per day over the past two years as petroleum flows from the Eagle Ford
Shale formation. New docks, pipeworks and crude oil storage tanks are being
constructed at various locations around the port to accommodate the flow. These
include two new docks designed to load up to six 30,000-barrel capacity barges
simultaneously and two larger facilities designed to support tankers of up to
500,000-barrel capacity. In addition, the port’s Trafigura Terminal is being
expanded to allow it to handle three medium-range tankers and two inland barges
simultaneously.
Most of the crude being loaded is moving to regional
refineries in Morgan City, Houston, Beaumont and Texas City. Beyond the Eagle
Ford crude, the port has secured a major partner for its La Quinta Trade Gateway
development (see Pacific Maritime Magazine, Sept. 2012), which is a multi-cargo
facility being development on the La Quinta Channel. Austria-based
international steel conglomerate Voestalpine announced earlier this year that
it will lease part of the facility as the site for its new US direct-reduction
steel plant, making it the anchor tenant for La Quinta.
The deal is subject to the successful completion and
execution of agreements with various regional government partners but Mike
Carrell, chairman of the Port Corpus Christi Commission, said the European
company is a good fit for La Quinta. ”Voestalpine is a major international
player in the steel-making and processing industry with a very strong focus on
the environment,” he noted, adding that the proposed direct-reduction plant
will provide both import and export cargos for Corpus Christi. When completed,
the mill will produce high quality DRI and HBI (“sponge iron”) from iron ore
pellets, with Altos Hornos de Mexico, a high-quality steel manufacturer south
of the border, already signing up to purchase HBI from the facility.
DRI and HBI are comparable to the highest quality scrap or
pig iron, and therefore are an excellent pre-material for the production of
crude steel. In contrast to using pure coke-based blast furnaces, the planned
direct-reduction plant will exclusively use environmentally friendly natural
gas as the reducing agent. Additionally, cutting edge environmental control
technology will be implemented in order to ensure a low emission iron reduction
process. Voestalpine’s total investment in the complex is projected to run at
about $700 million, with the plant due to come in line by 2016.
