Port sets cargo record for 2014

Published 11:45 pm Tuesday, January 27, 2015

By Monique Roth
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — The Port of South Louisiana is ringing in the New Year with the good news it set a local, as well as state and national, cargo-volume record in 2014 and recently saw Executive Director Paul Aucoin appointed by the World Trade Center of New Orleans to its 2015 Board of Directors.

“More tonnage translates into more throughput by our industries, which usually translates into more jobs,” Aucoin said. “Also, there are $12 billion of announced future projects in the Port’s jurisdiction, which means many new, high-paying jobs for our residents in addition to $12 billion in construction cost, for both labor and material.”

Total Port throughput — the movement of inputs and outputs — for 2014 was over 291.8 million short tons, which was 25.5 million short tons more than in 2013. The last year the Port saw record-breaking numbers was in 2012, when 278.9 million short tons of cargo was handled by its facilities.

The Port of South Louisiana, a 54-mile port district on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, encompasses the River Region with its facilities consistently handling over a quarter billion short tons of cargo annually, ranking it the largest tonnage port district in the Western Hemisphere, the nation’s greatest grain exporter and the No. 1 energy transfer port in the United States.

Officials said the Port’s 2014 total throughput increase was propelled, in particular, by an 28 percent increase in grain, 12 percent increase in chemicals/fertilizers, eight percent increase in crude oil, 37 percent increase in ores/phosphate rock, one percent increase in petrochemicals and 37 percent increase in steel products handling.

“I’m so very pleased and excited about the record-breaking tonnage figures,” Aucoin said.

“They illustrate the Port’s vitality and the importance of the Port and the River Region to our state and our country.”

Further cementing the Port’s prominence is news Aucoin was recently appointed by the World Trade Center of New Orleans to its 2015 Board of Directors, where he will take part in the organization’s Government Affairs and Transportation committees.

“I am excited and looking forward to serving on the World Trade Center board,” Aucoin said. “It plays such an important role in Louisiana trade, and I feel that as executive director of the Port of South Louisiana, I can contribute to that purpose.”

The World Trade Center of New Orleans is a business organization consisting of over 1,000 companies and high profile individual members, whose membership base represents a diverse group of industry leaders, companies, professional organizations and government institutions that include manufacturers, energy, agriculture, maritime, foreign consulates and other interests.

“His service on the Board of Directors is greatly appreciated,” Dominik Knoll, chief executive officer of the World Trade Center of New Orleans, said.

“We look forward to having the benefit of [his] counsel in helping us form and achieve the objectives of the World Trade Center.”