The highly automated container facility opened in 2003 at the Napoleon street wharf isn't living up to expectations in 2007. While container business grows at other ports around the country it is actually dropping in New Orleans.
Containers are the high value business that ports prefer. San Francisco has such a bustling container import business that local planners have begun to wonder what to do with left over containers. Imports so outstrip exports that containers are building up in shipyards. A San Francisco architectural firm is proposing building housing out of complexes of the used containers.
A standard container is 40 feet long, 8 feet wide and 8 1/2 feet tall. Each container masses 3,000 kilos empty and is capable of delivering a payload of 24,000 kilos. They fit nicely on an 18-wheeler and fully loaded are well within the 35,000 kilo highway weight limit common across America. Piggy back rail cars can carry two containers each. Containers are individually numbered and tracked. Smaller containers are available including 10, 20 and 30 foot lengths and a half height version are available for smaller shipments and for dense materials. So called "HiCube" containers are 9 1/2 feet tall. This mix of English linear dimensions and metric mass ratings is a curious blend suggesting containers outside the US markets will be slightly different sizes and all metric.
New Orleans lack of business stems from a variety of sources:
- The ten hour voyage up the river to the city compares unfavorably to easier accessibility of Mobile, Houston, Tampa
- Small size of the container storage area. New Orleans offers 65 acres vs 230 acres at Bayport near Houston and 80 in Mobile. This limiits the ability to serve larger ships.
- Multiple operator further fragment the offering (Ports America and Ceres Gulf each operate half of the container facility.)
- Loss of business in the post Katrina two week port closure (shouldn't this be ancient history?)
Containers are designed to be moved out of a port by rail or truck. New Orleans would benefit if movement by barge was a better option.