$366 million Mobile Harbor project a ‘generational change,’ CEO says

The long-anticipated deepening and widening of the Mobile Harbor shipping channel is set to be completed in March of next year, making the Port of Mobile the deepest harbor in the Gulf region.

“[The deepening and widening project] is really generational in the change it’s going to have to what we do here at the port,” John Driscoll, director and CEO of the Alabama Port Authority. “It’s going to be really impactful for future business and being able to handle the largest ships that ply the oceans.”

In progress since 2021, the $366 million project will allow newer, larger cargo ships to access the port. When it is completed, the harbor channel will be around 50 feet deep. One three-mile section of the channel will be widened by around 100 feet to allow for ships to pass.

Dustin Gautney, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, says the contract for phase 2b—widening a part of the lower bay channel to allow for a passing lane—was awarded last month to Weeks Marine, a New Jersey-based marine construction company.

The Corps is currently advertising for Phase 2A of the project, deepening another portion of the bar channel. Both of those projects are expected to be completed next year. Phase 5 of the project, deepening the upper bay channel, is ongoing and expected to be completed in August or September of this year, Gautney says.

Phases 1, 3, and 4 of the project have already been completed, Corps records show. The contract for Phase 6, deepening and widening the turning basin at the north part of the channel, was awarded in February. That project is underway as well.

The federal government has provided 75% of the funds for the deepening and widening project, or around $274.5 million, according to the port authority. The state has put up 25% of the funds; in addition, the state funded the dredging of berths at the Alabama Steel Terminal on Pinto Island, McDuffie Coal Terminal and the container terminal. In total, the state of Alabama contributed around $150 million to the project.

The state’s contribution is paid for with fuel tax revenue as part of the “Rebuild Alabama” grant program.

APM Terminals, which operates the port’s container terminal, said in a news release that by 2025 it will have doubled its container terminal capacity to over one million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), in part because of the deepening and widening project. The terminal’s capacity has been steadily growing, going from 502,623 TEUs in 2021 to 563,191 TEUs in 2022, a growth of more than 11%.

The deepening and widening project has spurred additional investment in the port as well. Earlier this week, two new cranes arrived at the Port of Mobile, to be used at the port’s container terminal. The giant cranes add to the four cranes at APM Terminals, one of the fastest-growing container terminals in the country.

“These [cranes] can reach out to the wider width of the ships, as well as the taller ships that are coming in,” Driscoll said. “It’s going to have a dramatic increase in the skyline.”

APM Terminals and the Alabama Port Authority have been in the process of expanding the container terminal for several years: Phase 3 of the expansion plan included extending the dock so the terminal can handle two 1,000-foot-long ships at the same time.

APM Terminals is also investing $60 million in a rail facility that will be connected to the port’s upcoming inland port in Montgomery, expected to be completed in 2025, according to the news release.

But environmental activists in Mobile have criticized the deepening and widening project, arguing that it poses a threat to the marine life in the bay. A 2018 study from the Corps found that there would be “no substantial impacts” to aquatic resources because of the project; that study was heavily panned by Mobile Baykeeper and others who rely on Mobile Bay’s marine resources.

Dredging material from the deepening and widening project will be used in the Dauphin Island Causeway Restoration Project, a plan to restore habitat along the causeway, which will also protect the road from natural disasters.