As lawmakers promise greater help, Ivey highlights the $98 billion impact of the Port of Mobile.
Montgomery, Alabama According to the Alabama Port Authority, the Port of Mobile, which is the second-fastest growing port in the US, had an economic effect of over $98 billion in 2022.
On Thursday, Gov. Kay Ivey and state business leaders celebrated the historic milestone on the steps of the state capitol. It’s no secret that our port is essential to our success, so everyone, let’s celebrate another fantastic day in our state’s history, Ivey said.
“I’m happy to announce that the Port of Mobile has had an incredible $98.3 billion impact on the state of Alabama over the past year. It has been growing at a faster rate than ever before.” That’s $98 billion with a B, people!
According to the most recent estimates of economic impact, there was a rise of over $13 billion from 2021 and $70.8 billion from 2020. Ivey also praised the port’s contribution to employment growth.
In contrast to 312,000 in 2021 and 162,000 in 2020, the Port of Mobile produced over 351,000 direct and indirect jobs in 2022, according to the Port Authority. The port’s effect on municipal and state taxes has also grown significantly in recent years; prior to the pandemic, this impact was $614 million in 2019.
According to Ivey, the port and its associated business returned $2.4 billion in taxes to the state and local governments last year. “The port touches every corner and industry in our state, whether it be through our booming automotive industry, exports of natural resources like coal and limestone, or innumerable other goods made in Alabama.”
According to John Driscoll, director of the Port Authority, the organisation plans to allocate more than $1 billion for infrastructure maintenance and upgrades in Mobile as well as at inland ports around the state, thanks to its sharp rise in operating revenues, which increased by 11.4% in 2022 over the previous year.
In particular, we have two cranes at the McDuffie Terminal that are over 50 years old. They are expensive—more than $25 million—so we will be bidding on those in the upcoming month, Driscoll told Alabama Daily News. “The two cranes are 51 and 52 years old, respectively, and have a life expectancy of about 25 years.” In response to a question on whether legislators might help the Port of Mobile and its operations further, Driscoll stated that infrastructural requirements would always exist, albeit at a high expense.
“There is a lot of old infrastructure that we’re slowly taking off at the port; this port dates back to the 1920s, so we always need additional investments in it,” he stated. “Some of that is being impacted by the $1 billion we plan to invest over the next ten years, but much more work needs to be done. Therefore, if the funds is available, that’s something that (state legislators) may assist us with in the future.
The House committee on ports is led by Representative Chip Brown, a Republican from Hollingers Island. He informed Alabama Daily News that he plans to introduce a bill in the near future that would expressly address the authority’s ongoing requirement for infrastructure upkeep and repair. He said that the bill will give state funding to meet the upkeep and development demands of the state’s inland ports in particular.
“All throughout our rivers and waterways, there are a lot of inland ports. A lot of them haven’t been updated in a long time, and some of them still have cranes that were built in the 1930s and 1940s that you can’t get parts for,” Brown said to ADN.
“I’ve visited many of these port facilities, and some of them are in really bad shape, and so we need to provide those ports the economic opportunity to upgrade their facilities so that they can in turn feed those goods down to the Port of Mobile, and vice versa. It simply benefits the state, makes sound commercial and economic sense, and generates employment.
