US President Obama toured Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal in New Orleans on 8 November. Speaking to a crowd of 500 following the tour President Obama said: “This is one of the busiest port complexes in the entire world. You move millions of tons of steel and chemicals and fuel and food every single year.
During in the tour of the terminal Port of New Orleans president and ceo, Gary LaGrange took the opportunity to promote deepening the Mississippi River from its current 45-47-foot draft to 50 feet to the same depth as the new locks for the expanded Panama Canal.
As with a speech President Obama made at the port of Jacksonville in July he stressed that US ports needed to be capable of handling the larger vessels the expanded Panama Canal will accommodate or risk losing shipping trade to other countries.
Some $1.4bn in federal funds were recently allocated to the dredging of the Sabine-Neches Waterway; the port of Savannah; Freeport, Texas; Port of Canaveral, Florida; and the port of Jacksonville, Florida.
LaGrange also focused on the $523m in funding need to complete the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal, adding 600,000 teu of annual capacity.
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