corporate headquarters in Gray, having moved from its longtime home in nearby Larose. In July 2015, Danos Group, a third-generation Louisiana company in the offshore services sector, hosted a grand opening for its new $10-million, 64,000-sq.-ft. The port also serves as the land base for the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), which handles about 14 percent of foreign oil imports and connects to 50 percent of US refining capacity.” A recent report from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center noted that Port Fourchon “services about half of all drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and over 75 percent of deep water oil production in the Gulf - equating to about 18 percent of the nation’s oil supply and 20 percent of the domestic natural gas supply. The metro area of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, deep in the Bayou, is best known as a hub for offshore oil and gas and shipping/transport services. Louisiana’s energy profile is as much about services as it is about equipment. It’s where Genesis Energy is investing $150 million in a new oil storage and import/export terminal on the Mississippi River’s west bank, with much of the capital going toward tanks and pipelines connecting to ExxonMobil’s Anchorage Tank Farm in West Baton Rouge Parish. The Port of Baton Rouge is a case in point. Gulf Coast port business accounts for about $1 trillion of the national figure of $4.6 trillion - and that doesn’t even count inland ports, where energy’s profile is nearly as robust. Pennsylvania-based transportation planning and economics consultancy Martin Associates reports that Gulf Coast ports account for 4.3 million of 23.1 million jobs (18 percent). Of the 23 LNG export terminals proposed to FERC in the pending or pre-filing phase, nearly a third are in Louisiana, including multiple facilities in Plaquemines Parish. In the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export terminal category alone, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had approved six new Gulf Coast terminals as of August 2015, with three of them in Louisiana and two of those under construction (Cheniere in Sabine and Sempra/Cameron in Hackberry). So it’s a very concentrated and important area of the country.” About 40 percent of the refining capacity in the US is located in this region as well. ”We import along the Gulf Coast about 60 percent of all of the crude oil in the US. “There are about 300,000 people who work along the Gulf of Mexico in the energy industry alone,” says David Dismukes, LSU Center for Energy Studies director. That’s saying something, given that the state’s population of 4.6 million is significantly greater than other top states in that category (Alaska and North Dakota among them). The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says Louisiana is second to Wyoming in total energy consumed per capita, at 828 million Btu. Water companies will continue to thrive and prosper, offering investors the ability to realize capital appreciation as well as sustainable long term dividend income, with relatively low levels of risk and volatility, while delivering positive impact.Since the depths of the recession in 2009, Louisiana has been second only to North Dakota in industrial load growth, at 20 percent. These factors provide an unprecedented period of transformation and investment opportunity for the water industry. Our investment philosophy focuses first on return of capital, before return on capital, with a strong focus on risk management across all investment vehicles.Ĭlimate change is intensifying drought, flood, and fire. WAM’s investment process is focused on fundamental analysis based on deep, proprietary water industry expertise and access to a wide range of industry operators, regulators, and policy experts. WAM’s core belief is that scarce clean water is the resource defining this century, much like plentiful oil defined the last. Delivering clean water and treating wastewater is essential to sustaining life, and public health while restoring rivers, coastal environments, and marine ecosystems. Water investing is responsible investing.
Water investing combines competitive investment returns and free enterprise, with serving the common good and delivering measurable positive impact.