This article has been reprinted from the Feb. 20 USDA Grain Transportation Report.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has allocated $403 million in response to port requests to accommodate growing vessel sizes.
The most funding ($274 million) went to the Port of Mobile, AL, to dredge its port channel to 50 feet (ft.), followed by $85 million to deepen the Mississippi River to 50 ft. between the Gulf of Mexico and a point between the Ports of New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana.
Other allocations included $29.1 million to Port Everglades, FL, for widening the Intracoastal Waterway by 250 ft.; $13.3 million for dredging and maintenance work in Jacksonville (FL) Harbor; $1.5 million for a study on deepening the Seagirt Loop Channel for the Port of Baltimore (MD); and $200,000 for completing the NY and NJ Harbor Navigation Improvements Study for the Ports of New York and New Jersey.
A 2019 USDA study estimated that increasing the lower Mississippi draft depth to 50 feet would save $13.02 in ocean freight rates per metric ton of soybeans shipped from the Gulf.