← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 19995 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2005-09-04
2005-09-04 13:21 | User Profile
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
KATRINA: THE AFTERMATH: PORT ACTIVITY: Shutdowns will benefit other states Oil deliveries resume in New Orleans Dan Chapman - Staff Sunday, September 4, 2005
Gary LaGrange looked beyond the flattened shipping containers, roofless warehouses and silt-clogged channels at the Port of New Orleans and into a future where Hurricane Katrina is but a bad memory.
"It won't be overnight," said LaGrange, the port's executive director, "but eventually we will bounce back bigger and better than ever."
Meantime, ports in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota and beyond will benefit from Louisiana's misery, as well as from the decimation of the port at nearby Gulfport, Miss. Nobody knows how long the two ports will remain closed, nor how many millions of dollars will be needed to repair Katrina's damage.
Port officials took solace in the reopening Thursday of Mobile's port and of the resumption of some barge traffic along the lower Mississippi River. Oil tankers also began unloading Thursday at New Orleans.
But the U.S. economy, particularly in the Midwest, will stumble from the shuttering of New Orleans' port, one of the nation's busiest with 2,000 oceangoing vessels calling on the Big Easy each year. Sixty percent of the nation's grain is exported via New Orleans, as are millions of tons of chickens, rice, soybeans, paper, chemicals and scrap metal.
Rubber, copper, steel, natural gas and coffee --- one-fourth of the nation's java consumption --- come ashore in New Orleans. The port handled nearly $50 billion in goods last year. Gulfport is one of the country's top banana ports.
Ports across the country are receiving hundreds of calls daily from shippers looking to unload cargo once bound for New Orleans. Billions of dollars are at stake.
"From a business perspective, it's like trying to get from the home to the office without being able to use the same route you always use," explained Byron Miller, spokesman for the South Carolina State Ports Authority in Charleston. "So you have to choose a different way to get there."
South Carolina has received inquiries from a variety of trans-Atlantic carriers. Neither Miller nor his counterpart in Georgia, home to the ports of Savannah and Brunswick, would detail shippers' interest.
Three thousand tons of rubber and timber intended for New Orleans were off-loaded early Thursday at the Port of Houston.
Ships hauling steel and coffee also have been diverted there. Galveston and Corpus Christi, Texas, will take up some of New Orleans' grain export slack.
Chiquita Brands International will use the ports at Freeport, Texas, and Port Everglades, Fla., for most of its banana imports. Miami can handle much of the coffee overflow.
Upper Midwest ports, including Duluth, Minn., and Burns Harbor, Ind., might ship commodities once headed for New Orleans through the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The major East Coast ports, though, deal heavily in containerized shipments --- not grain and gasoline --- so traffic may not rise dramatically.
Houston and other ports also notched record imports last year, due to the Asian export boom, so storage space is expected to tighten in the months to come.
By then, said Asaf Ashar, a professor with the National Ports & Waterways Institute of the flooded University of New Orleans, the Crescent City's port --- concrete and steel, mainly --- should be up and running.
"I don't believe other ports will pick up much work from New Orleans," he said, "because, overall, the port is OK. Unlike the rest of the economy."
New York Times, Associated Press and MICHAEL DABROWA / Staff A HUB BECOMES A CHOKE POINT New Orleans is a major port for oil and natural gas imports. Midwestern commodites, grains in particular, rely heavily on New Orleans for exports. The region's mix of Mississippi River barges, railroads and truck lines have transformed New Orleans into one of the nation's major transit centers. Almost half of the country's oil refinery capacity is concentrated on the Gulf Coast. 13%: Percentage of country's capacity idled by Katrina. Gulf of Mexico oil production As a percentage of total U.S. production Bar graph traces the growth of Gulf oil production from 1990 - 2005. A growing share of domestic oil production comes from the Gulf. 92%: Percent idled by Katrina. Flow of wheat exports by region In the 12-month period that ended in May, 44 percent of wheat exports went through Gulf ports. Gulf..........................44% Pacific ......................42% Great Lakes / St. Lawrence....10% Rail to Mexico ................3% Atlantic ......................1% Includes a small map of the United States indicating the location of wheat producers and ports Map of the midwestern and southeastern United States locates major railroads, truck lines and ports at these key locations: New Orleans Corpus Christi Houston Tampa Galveston Miami Savannah Freeport Charleston Gulfport Duluth Burns Harbor Port Everglades Brunswick Graph traces cargo volume in millions of tons at the Port of New Orleans from 1990 to 2004, differentiating container goods from bulk, noncontainer goods. Port ranking by value of exported cargo In billions of dollars, 2003 1. New York/New Jersey ..$24.3 2. Houston ..............$21.4 3. Long Beach, Calif.....$17.2 4. Los Angeles ..........$16.9 5. Charleston............$13.4 6. Hampton Roads, Va.....$12.3 7. New Orleans ..........$11.2 8. Oakland................$7.8 9. Savannah ..............$7.4 10. Miami ................$6.8 Sources: The Port of New Orleans; Energy Information Administration; Colonial Pipeline Co.; Plantation Pipe Line; Minerals Management Service, U.S. Wheat Associates [url]http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/business_34a186b920da804b00b3.html[/url]