Inbound Logistics | July 2022

loaded, which is inefcient, Kennedy says. This project will deepen the port’s navigation channel from 42 feet to 48 to 50 feet and widen narrow channel areas. It will be complete by 2030. PORT OF LOS ANGELES STAYS BUSY For more than two decades, the Port of Los Angeles has been the busiest in the Western Hemisphere. In 2021, it handled 10.7 million TEUS. To continue managing this volume, a number of capital projects are underway. The Everport Container Terminal Improvement Project, among other changes, deepened the berth to 53 feet and improved the electrical infrastructure to allow for three additional container cranes, says Tony Gioiello, the port’s deputy executive director of development. The project launched in September 2019 and was completed March 2022, at a cost of $65 million. The Pier 400 Corridor Storage Tracks Expansion Project, budgeted at $73.2 million, expands existing rail storage yard, adds 43,000 track feet and ve railroad storage tracks, and extends an existing rail bridge. Construction started in February 2022 and is expected to end in mid-2024.

At the Port of Lake Charles in Louisiana, a $30 million rehabilitation project is underway to replace the 1920-era berth structure that’s supported by wood pilings and lacks the weight capacity for modern cargo handling.

“Each crane can move more containers faster and more efciently than the existing cranes,” Kennedy says. The Port Everglades Navigation Improvements Project (PENIP), to be done in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is designed to enable safe passage of the larger neo-Panamax cargo ships. As the leading U.S. gateway for trade with Latin America, Port Everglades already was handling neo- Panamax vessels from Europe and South America, but the ships had to be lightly

that’s supported by wood pilings and lacks the weight capacity for modern cargo handling. “This project will give the port the opportunity to handle project cargo such as wind components, steel, pipe, and other heavy lift cargo,” Chretien says. Before Hurricane Laura hit the area in August 2020, the Port of Lake Charles had 1.4 million square feet of covered storage, including 900,000 square feet along the waterfront. The hurricane damaged or destroyed about half the covered storage. To provide additional storage in a timely manner, the port is constructing, at a cost of about $5.4 million, two tension fabric storage structures. These will offer about 100,000 square feet of storage. PORT EVERGLADES GOES LONG The new, $471 million Southport Turning Notch Extension at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is the largest infrastructure project in the port’s history, says spokesperson Ellen Kennedy. The project lengthened the existing turning notch from 900 feet to 2400 feet, adding up to ve new cargo berths in the Southport Container Complex area. As part of this project, Port Everglades took delivery of three Super Post-Panamax container gantry cranes over the past year, while also ordering three more cranes that are scheduled for delivery by late 2023.

The Port of Los Angeles has completed construction of the $65 million Everport Terminal Improvement Project to improve the capacity of its existing terminal to accommodate larger container vessels anticipated to call at the terminal over the next two decades.

170 Inbound Logistics • July 2022