Happy Monday!
Welcome back to another week of ESC News Blog. After the rainy and gloomy weekend, it was nice to see the sun this afternoon.
At this point,
you know we like to stay on top of the happenings at the Ports in Texas. In 2023, the Port of Brownsville was
in our blog couple times for receiving good news and in October 2024, when the
Port of Brownsville announced them securing a loan for Phase 2 of Brazos Island Harbor Channel Improvement Project (BIH). Port of Brownville had a commencement
celebration for the official beginning of Phase 2 of the BIH on Friday.
Did anyone receive
the Port of Brownsville’s Announcement on December 6, 2024, “Growing
to New Depths - Port of Brownsville Strengthens Global Trade in South Texas
with Channel Deepening Groundbreaking Ceremony”? The Brownsville Navigation District (BND) and
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) held a celebration on Friday, December
6, 2024, to officially celebrate the beginning of Phase 2 for the deepening of the
BIH. BIH will be dredging the 17-mile-long
Brownsville Ship Channel 10 feet resulting in it lowering to 52 feet deep and
larger vessels may come into port once completed. The improvements
were found to have minimal to no impacts on the marine life living in the waterway
according to the environmental assessment completed by USACE. BIH is expected to help the port continue growing the amount of cargo it moves every year; in 2023 they moved 17%
more than 2022. BIH is financed by
a two-phase approach of a Public Private Partnership (P3) which USACE, NextDecade
Corporation, the holding company of Rio Grande LNG (who is a terminal operator at
the Port), and BND. BIH Phase 1 was
solely paid for by NextDecade who will spend $400 million to deepen the
waterway from its mouth to their western boundary of their subsidiary, Rio
Grande LNG and this work is anticipated to be done in 2026. Rio Grande LNG not only will have a deeper
channel for ships to navigate they will be building two ship berths and a
turning basin for its new facility. Now with
BIH Phase 2 officially beginning, and its contract awarded to Callan Marine LTD
work will continue and it will likely be finished by mid-2026. Phase 2 of the BIH which is from the Rio Grande
LNG facility to the turning basin will cost an estimated $139.5 million with
USACE financing $68 million and the Port of Brownville paying or borrowing the
rest. (Check out our Blog in October for details on their loan.) Well, this is good news for the Port of
Brownsville, and we would like to congratulate them on their continued
improvements to this important waterway. If you would like to read more of Port of Brownsville’s Announcement, please
click the link: Growingto New Depths: Port of Brownsville Strengthens Global Trade in South Texas withChannel Deepening Groundbreaking Ceremony – Port of Brownsville.
If you would
like help in looking into how to make improvements at your liquids terminal,
contact us via email in the Blog and check out our ESC website!
We hope you have a wonderful evening and a great rest of
your week!
**Disclaimer: Please see the Port of Brownsville’s
announcement for specific details. **