Ports of the Americas
Special Report
said in a statement to the Journal of Commerce that it would continue to advance work on LIT and“ remains confident in its legal position” despite the“ procedural” ruling. Located about 16 miles down the Mississippi River from the current port in New Orleans, LIT will not have the air-draft limits of the current port. With a depth of 55 feet, the LIT is designed to berth two neo-Panamax container ships, each with up to 16,000 TEUs of capacity, and will be able to handle 2 million TEUs annually at full capacity. The project’ s co-sponsors, MSC’ s Terminal Investment Limited( TIL) and Ports America, which have pledged $ 800 million toward the project, could break ground by October, according to a person familiar with the project. Port NOLA has federal and state commitments of $ 500 million toward below-water work. In addition to the below-water work, Port NOLA will also be developing a new truck route for the LIT, which will connect it to federal highways and reduce local traffic impacts. Louisiana’ s Department of Transportation is now studying alternatives for the truck route, and Port NOLA has received state approval to partner with a third party to finance, build and operate it. MSC accounts for about 28 % of the post-Panamax container ship calls to the US Gulf Coast, according to Seaweb, a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global. But due to the depth limits of Gulf Coast ports and terminal capacity constraints, the average capacity of an MSC vessel calling the Gulf is about 8,000 TEUs.
North Carolina eyes inland breakbulk in maritime expansion
By Autumn Giusti
North Carolina is looking to drive growth in its maritime economy via strategic investment in new and existing infrastructure that would encourage more breakbulk and project cargo activity in the state. This would require North Carolina to build out port- and water-linked infrastructure and related assets to fill any gaps between the shipper, cargo, terminal capacity and transportation
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connections, according to Dana Magliola, North Carolina Chamber Foundation’ s senior director of infrastructure competitiveness.“ The improvements and the capex needs are the things that make specialized freight easier to handle reliably, such as better terminal access, site readiness, permitting efficiency and workforce,” Magliola said. The chamber released a report in July on the state’ s maritime assets suggesting that breakbulk and project cargo can“ create a practical set of opportunities that do not require the state to chase the container scale of Norfolk, [ Virginia ], Charleston, [ South Carolina ] or Savannah, [ Georgia ].” These call for developing secondary maritime infrastructure such as inland waterways, barge terminals and storage facilities to better accommodate more breakbulk and project cargo. The report set a goal of 500,000 additional tons of breakbulk cargo by 2031. North Carolina is anchored by two main deepwater ports for breakbulk and general cargo— the Port of Morehead City and the Port of Wilmington. Morehead City, four miles from the Atlantic Ocean, focuses on breakbulk and specialized cargo, while Wilmington— 26 miles inland along the Cape Fear River— handles roll-on / roll-off cargo and other breakbulk commodities. Although the mainstream conversation about economic development“ usually stops and starts” with the two ports, the North Carolina chamber foundation’ s report suggests that the momentum from growth at the two ports creates room for development across the rest of the maritime ecosystem, including inland breakbulk facilities and infrastructure. Magliola cites investments in secondary facilities
such as Riverbulk Terminal, an inland cargo site along the Chowan River run by barge operator Riverbulk, as an example of a water-adjacent resource that can help drive breakbulk and project cargo business. Barge facilities such as Riverbulk are considered a case study in accommodating difficult cargoes such as wind components, transformers and construction materials, along with steel. Magliola said that the region’ s breakbulk and project cargo activity serves as proof that North Carolina’ s maritime infrastructure delivers a return on investment.
CSX adds Indianapolis route to Virginia port service
By Michael Angell
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CSX Transportation has launched a rail service connecting the Port of Virginia to Indianapolis, offering US East Coast shippers an intermodal alternative to the Port of New York and New Jersey, the Virginia Port Authority said on July 31. CSX will offer a five-day service from the Virginia International Gateway( VIG) terminal to its international container transfer facility in Indianapolis. Outside of the VIG, the only other international intermodal service to Indianapolis is from the NY-NJ port marine terminals, which offer a comparable five-day transit time. VIG has on-dock access for both CSX and Norfolk Southern Railway. VIG handles five of the seven Asia services that call Norfolk, with the other two handled at Norfolk International Terminals. Ocean Alliance services are the primary users of the VIG. The Indianapolis international container service from VIG joins other CSX
46 Journal of Commerce | October 5, 2026 www. joc. com