Amanda Coates on Port NOLA’s Expansion

Some of the exciting projects that are now moving in Louisiana, Amazon and Meta have both announced projects in Louisiana and so has Hyundai. So Hyundai is building a six billion dollars steel mill. We've had over eighty billion in Louisiana announced projects that are for either expansion or new projects, and really we've worked very closely with the state to align the port needs and also what the port capabilities can handle in order to support these projects. So for the data centers, we're seeing generators and transformers that are coming across our docks, they're loading to either barge or rail or truck, and they're being sent into the nearest location for those sites. We're expecting cargo for the Hyundai steel mill to start moving pretty soon in containers, and so a lot of these plants that are upriver from New Orleans, even through Louisiana, so we serve over thirty states. We're connected to thirty states by river, and then we're connected to the entire country by rail. So we're the only deepwater port in the United States where all of the Class I railroads are converging, and so we really use that to offer seamless supply chain solutions and as a multimodal strategy. And so many different plant expansions are happening in Louisiana. We see plants moving big project pieces that are required to build out the plant. So it will be project cargo on the front end, but then also containerized cargo on the back end once they start manufacturing. So New Orleans is really a critical piece in not only Louisiana, but the heartland of America. View this entire Point to Point episode on our YouTube channel.