The Port of Caddo-Bossier recently celebrated its achievements with its tenants and stakeholders at the Regional Commerce Center. This event was the first Port Night held since 2020 because of COVID-19 restrictions. Port Night highlighted the accomplishments of the last few years.
While the pandemic affected Port tenants and tonnage, Port employees were deemed as essential workers and continued to work. At the end of 2022, commodities at the Port topped a million tons.
Some Port of Caddo-Bossier highlights of the past three years are listed below.
In May 2022, a groundbreaking was held for Performance Proppants’ Sunny Point Aggregates new Port facility, located in Bossier Parish. The company will remove 45 million tons of frac sand from an oxbow lake off the Red River to help reduce costs associated with drilling in the Haynesville Shale. Sixty new jobs are expected to be created.
In June 2022, a ribbon cutting was held for The Port’s new 100,000-square-foot, heavy industrial warehouse. The Port of Caddo-Bossier, the Red River Waterway Commission, and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development funded the $15 million project.
The Port of Caddo-Bossier helped the new Teal-Jones sawmill in Plain Dealing with conduit bonds, which made financing the project easier. The new sawmill will create 125 direct and 369 indirect jobs for rural Bossier Parish.
The Port reached two milestones with customer Vulcraft Texas, which is a division of Nucor. In January 2020, the company’s 100th barge was off-loaded at The Port. In 2022, the company’s 200th barge of steel coils was off-loaded.
“We have celebrated a number of successes in the past few years, but we still have many more to go,” said Port Commission President Walter Bigby Jr. “In 2023, The Port will focus on a new waterline from Bossier City, construction of a second heavy industrial warehouse and the I-69 service road that will connect The Port to I-49.”
“2022 was a great year for The Port of Caddo-Bossier, but we’re not done yet,” said Executive Port Director Eric England. “By working closely with our partners at North Louisiana Economic Partnership, BRF and the Greater Bossier Economic Development Foundation, we will continue to be an important and successful economic engine for this area.”
