Port of New Orleans chair says CEO’s top job is to stem loss of container business

The top priority for incoming Port of New Orleans CEO Beth Ann Branch is to stem the loss of market share in the vital container cargo sector, the port’s board chairman said Friday.

During the port’s annual State of the Port address, chairman Michael Thomas pointed to positive port achievements, including $300 million in investments over the last five years on items like new gantry cranes at the Napoleon Avenue container terminal. Also, he noted the strong rebound in cruise ship traffic since the coronavirus pandemic, which he said is expected to break records next year. 

But Thomas also said that parochial thinking and unnecessary competition had held progress back at Port NOLA, and that part of Branch’s job would be to overcome that.

“The port and the belt is an economic engine that is second to none, but for a long time we’ve been overlooked in the region,” Thomas said on the sidelines of the gathering at the Four Seasons hotel. “That’s not what we’re going to be any more.”

The port announced last month that it had hired Branch, a seasoned port executive from the Port of Mobile, after the Alabama coastal city emerged over the last decade as the principal regional shipping rival of New Orleans.

Mobile has outpaced New Orleans in the containerized shipping business, which now represents more than two-thirds of the value of global maritime trade. More than 580,000 standard-sized containers passed through Mobile last year, while container volume at the New Orleans port was around 481,000 units last year, down by around 15% over the past decade.

The port and the Public Belt Railroad generated $130 million in revenues in the year ending 2023, and despite reporting record volume in its most recent quarter, it still has a lot of ground to make up.

Thomas said that while Branch has ideas about how to regain container cargo market share as soon as she takes up the new job in December, the strategic priority for the port is to get its $1.8 billion container terminal built in St. Bernard Parish.

Thomas and Branch have already held meetings with local leaders in St. Bernard where the proposed container facility — called the Louisiana International Terminal, or LIT — has faced opposition since it was first announced three years ago.

“We’re working with the leaders in St. Bernard on a daily basis to try and solve their problems and the new CEO also is starting to do that,” Thomas said. “That hasn’t been done in the past at this level.”

The LIT project is a public-private effort that is expected to be financed by the port and its two private sector partners, Ports America, the largest marine terminal operator in the U.S., and Terminal Investment Limited.

The LIT also has received nearly $300 million in federal and state funding, which includes money to build the “St. Bernard Transportation Corridor,” that will connect the terminal with the Interstate and prevent the already congested main roads in the parish from getting further clogged up.

Thomas said Friday that he is working through the new strategic body set up by Gov. Jeff Landry to ensure the state support continues.

“With Governor Landry’s establishment of the Louisiana Ports and Waterways Investment Commission, we now have a strong advocate for public investments that will strengthen port and waterway infrastructure,” he said.