Posted on March 16, 2022
NEW IBERIA, La. (KLFY)– Dredges have arrived at the Port of Iberia and are preparing to double parts of the channel’s depth. A hydraulic dredge will be running 24 hours a day seven days a week. A bucket dredge will also work alongside the first. Dredging is scheduled to last eight to ten months.
Executive Director of the Port of Iberia, Craig Romero, told News 10 the hydraulic dredge is one engine replacement away from deepening the channel for seven miles to the Intercoastal Canal. Already $50M state dollars have been invested to lower three pipelines and build stronger bulkheads which make this project possible. He says the investment is already attracting national and international companies Seadrill and Turner Industries.
“They (Turner Industries) looked at 28 different ports from South Carolina to Brownsfield Texas, and they chose the Port of Iberia because the Port of Iberia is deepening its channel, and they are going to be able to get all their deepwater projects and projects at the petrol chemical plants from the Port of Iberia with little to no problems,” Romero stated.
Romero says there are two reasons Acadiana’s Port is so attractive for new business. Its location drastically cuts transportation costs for equipment and vessel repairs because companies don’t have to ship equipment on the highway from Fourchon to Lafayette or Broussard to be worked on. Another key factor is the available workforce.
According to Romero, “You have over 250,000 people within five miles of where we’re standing that you can draw from unlike down in Fourchon. This way you can maintain a quality of life and live with your family and have a job in the oilfield and work in the Gulf of Mexico.”
As attractive as that is, Port Depth is a deal-breaker allowing bigger ships to dock without being unloaded. At its absolute shallowest Fourchon’s port is 20 to 25 feet deep. Romero admits the shallowest water in the Iberia’s port is currently close to eight feet deep, but after dredging it will all be 16 feet. He’s expecting a rising tide of new opportunities for Acadiana which should lift all ships.
“We’ve already gotten tenants simply because we’ve announced in the last year to year and a half that we were dredging the port channel in the Port of Iberia. They’re coming, and we haven’t even started dredging, but they want to be here,” Romero said.
Dredges will remove one-point-three million cubic yards of silt from the port by the project’s completion. 1.1M will be deposited on the marshes owned by the Mcllhenny Tabasco family to nourish the land. Another 200,00 will be put onto the leased property of a nearby landowner.
Once the machines start running, the Port of Iberia has already invited News 10 to show what the process looks like.
