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.

This spring’s arrival of three post-Panamax cranes at the Port of Gulfport, Mississippi, has been upstaged by a shipyard contract that’s expected to get the port off the hook for repayment of millions of dollars in hurricane relief funds.

The Port of Gulfport, Mississippi, which is losing its largest tenant with the departure of Chiquita to New Orleans, expects to sign a new long-term lease with Dole Fresh Fruit Co.