North Carolina’s governor toured new expansions to the port of Wilmington on Tuesday which he says could help to ease supply chain problems in the state.
The visit came as gas prices across the country have soared to record highs, and WRAL News asked the governor for his plan to help North Carolinians cope with the increases.
When many of the country’s ports were seeing huge backups in the fall, cargo kept moving in and out quickly from the port of Wilmington.
Leaders of the NC State Ports Authority told WRAL News they wanted to make the state’s major port one of the premier shipping sites in the country, and on Tuesday the governor saw their latest step forward.
“This is exciting that the port of Wilmington here can double the production process and get these containers from one place to the next,” NC Governor Roy Cooper said.
Cooper toured the new South Gate Container Complex, a $26 million investment that opened in February and expanded how many trucks could enter and exit the port at once, while also using new technology to process them more efficiently.
He also took in the view from 150 feet in the air, climbing one of the three new shipping cranes the port has been using to move cargo.
Combined, the state said the projects would allow Wilmington’s port to move twice as many containers each year, from 600,000 up to an estimated 1.2 million.
“It affects the supply chain, it affects the manufacturing of products, and it also affects the costs that families pay for the goods that they receive,” Cooper said.
The governor said it was one thing to speed up how goods moved at the port but combined with other new infrastructure projects like Rocky Mount’s Carolina Connector terminal, these upgrades could speed up deliveries beyond North Carolina.
“That’s helping to improve the supply chain in this country, it’s helping to create jobs, and it’s helping to lower costs for North Carolinians and Americans across the country,” Cooper said.
One cost that’s been making its presence recently is gas.
Experts have said that in the past two weeks the price of fuel has risen faster than at any point in American history, surpassing the previous record from 2008 to hit an all-time high.
WRAL News asked the governor for his plan to help bring that cost down in North Carolina.
“We want to work together to try to lower prices,” Cooper said. “And I encourage the president to do everything he can to increase domestic production, to work with countries across the world to release more oil production so it can help us drive the prices down.”
Cooper also said that he supported President Biden’s decision to cut off imports of Russian oil, citing the need to send a strong message following the invasion of Ukraine.
WRAL News has reached out to the White House for a response to the governor’s call for action.
We’ll update this story as soon as we get a response.
