A new all-water service from Asia will boost the volume of imports flowing into the US Gulf Coast amid an ongoing boom in regional import distribution capacity.

The Port of New Orleans was halting operations Monday ahead of Hurricane Sally, due to make landfall in southeastern Louisiana on Tuesday.

The US Coast Guard has declared Condition Yankee for the eastern US Gulf of Mexico ports including Panama City, Pensacola, Mobile, Pascagoula, and Gulfport. Under that status, ports are closed to inbound and outbound traffic.

Yilport, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mississippi State Port Authority in February, is promising to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the state’s Port of Gulfport, which it says has the potential to feed volume, particularly refrigerated goods, between Gulfport and Yilport terminals in Ecuador and Peru.