Posted on January 15, 2024
The Plaquemines Port Harbor and Terminal District announced Friday it has signed a preliminary deal with a global terminal operator to build a new container terminal on the West Bank of Plaquemines Parish.
APM Terminals, based in The Netherlands, is one of the largest terminal operators in the world. It operates 66 container terminals, including four in the U.S. in Los Angeles, Miami, Mobile and Port Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Under the terms of the deal, which is only a letter of intent at this point, the Plaquemines Port will lease land to APM Terminals for 30 years with options to extend. The initial phase will encompass 200 acres, on-dock rail, and a berth capable of handling 14,000-TEU vessels, which are the largest ships now traversing the expanded Panama Canal.
The deal would also include options to expand the site up to 900 acres to accommodate more terminal and logistics activities, according to a joint statement issued by the port and the company.
APM Terminals estimates the initial buildout of terminal infrastructure would cost some $500 million, according to the statement, which says the project would be privately funded. It does not identify a source of funding.
In late 2021, the Plaquemines Port and APM Terminals made a similar announcement about their plans to work together on a new container terminal. That deal, which also involved an outside developer, fell through. The new plans involve only APM Terminals and the Plaquemines Port, the port’s Executive Director Charles Tillotson said.
Parochialism?
The announcement comes amid intense competition among the five deep-draft ports in south Louisiana as the Port of New Orleans moves forward with its plans for a new $1.8 billion container terminal — the Louisiana International Terminal — in lower St. Bernard Parish.
In December 2022, Gov. John Bel Edwards and Port NOLA announced a partnership between the state, the port and two global maritime companies to build the new terminal. The companies, Ports America and Mediterranean Shipping Company, committed to investing $800 million in the project.
Weeks later, the Port of South Louisiana announced it was expanding with the purchase of the former Avondale Shipyards site for more than $440 million. The controversial deal has since stalled.
Critics have said the state’s port system, which includes 27 smaller ports besides the five major ones, is parochial, with no guiding statewide strategy or oversight, which has bred infighting and hurt the state’s competitiveness.
Plaquemines Port is one of the largest in the world for moving bulk cargo, including agricultural products, as well as oil and petrochemicals. But world shipping volumes have for years been moving toward containerized shipping, and in recent years Gulf of Mexico ports, including Houston and Mobile, have been vying to capture market share.
In a prepared statement, APM Terminals’ Wim Lagaay ssaid, “In time, this greenfield site has all the potential to evolve into one of the big ship gateways into the U.S.”
