E-Crane Launches New Facility At Port Of Iberia

Belgium-based E-Crane Worldwide, a builder of electric, counterbalanced cranes since 1990, launched its subsidiary dealer for North and South America, E-Crane International USA, in 1999. Since then, the company has delivered more than 100 cranes to the U.S. market from its base of operations in Galion, Ohio, with crane components manufactured in Poland and assembled in the United States.

Now, with the demand for barge-mounted cranes on the rise and with substantial U.S. market growth in the South, E-Crane is launching a new assembly and service facility at the Port of Iberia, located near the city of New Iberia, La., population 28,000. E-Crane and Port of Iberia officials held a lease signing ceremony December 1.

E-Crane International USA CEO Steve Osborne said he and other company leaders had a vision for establishing an assembly facility somewhere beyond its landlocked headquarters in Ohio. After conducting an extensive search, the Port of Iberia turned out to be a perfect fit, thanks in large part to help and insight from the port’s executive director, Craig Romero.

“We just didn’t have the runway to land our big ideas, and that’s what Craig did for us,” Obsorne said.

The Port of Iberia offers connections to the Mississippi River and ports all along the coast via the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) and to Central and South America by way of the Gulf of Mexico. The port’s Acadiana-Gulf of Mexico Access Channel is a soon-to-be 16-foot-deep north-south waterway that connects to both the GIWW and the Gulf.

Romero said a huge selling point was the port’s access to the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development’s Port Construction and Development Priority Program, which provides state funding for port infrastructure improvements. The port will build two new bulkheads and make renovations to existing buildings, with improvements totaling more than $3 million. That work will be paid for by the state’s Port Priority Program, with just a small percentage reflected in E-Crane’s lease at the port.

“That state program is the critical part that helped us make this deal,” Romero said. “We’re going to start on it the beginning of 2024, and we expect it to be complete by the summer.”

The port will also make $4.5 million in additional bulkhead improvements with funds already in hand.

Romero said, of the 32 port authorities in the state, the vast majority are small, shallow-draft ports like the Port of Iberia, and yet those smaller ports have a huge impact on their communities by creating jobs and connecting them to some of the largest energy projects and markets around the world.

“The Port of Iberia is the only port in Acadiana, and it provides jobs for people all over Acadiana,” Romero said. “E-Crane will help stimulate our local economy and provide key diversity to our industrial port.”

Those connections stand to grow even more as the port oversees the deepening of the Acadiana-Gulf of Mexico Access Channel, a $100 million project. Romero said the port will open bids January 9, 2024, for a $20 million dredging project, which will take about 445 days to complete.

“We’ve already had a couple tenants come in anticipation of the deeper channel,” Romero said.

What’s more, the deepening work is already benefiting existing tenants at the Port of Iberia, like Seadrill, E-Crane’s neighbor, which saved $300,000 on a recent move because of the increased available draft, Romero said.

The new E-Crane facility at the Port of Iberia will cover a total of 13 acres, with 1,500 linear feet of water frontage and 530 feet of reinforced bulkhead. The site includes a 26,000-square-foot assembly shop and an 11,000-square-foot warehouse and office, both of which will be renovated. Osborne said E-Crane will have both fixed and mobile cranes at the facility.

“Eventually, we’re going to install a small crawler E-Crane as a demo unit,” he said. “We’re hoping to use this facility to provide more name recognition for our equipment.”

Beyond assembling new cranes on site, E-Crane will also offer maintenance and overhaul services at the new facility. Osborne said, since E-Crane will now be doing that work at its own facility with water access, customers’ barge cranes should be back up and running in a more timely and economically efficient manner.

“With this facility, we dramatically increase our customer service capability for the Gulf Coast and beyond,” Osborne said.

E-Crane offers both mobile and fixed cranes designed to handle a wide range of bulk materials and scrap and for dredging and marine construction applications. Besides all featuring a counterbalance for more efficient operation, E-Cranes are all electric, operating on either shore power or on electricity from generators.

“It’s a huge savings, not only in emissions, but also in cost,” Osborne said.

Caption for top photo: Announcing E-Crane’s new Port of Iberia facility at the Workboat Show are, from left: Craig Romero, executive director, Port of Iberia; Aaron Bennett, manager, E-Crane Gulf Coast; Steve Osborne, CEO, E-Crane Americas; and Shane Walet, commission president, Port of Iberia.