BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, US — The Port of Greater Baton Rouge recently announced that a custom-made barge crane is ready for use. The new pedestal crane will be used by Louis Dreyfus Co.’s grain elevator during periods of high and low water to help unload grain barges shipped via the Mississippi River, according to the Port of Greater Baton Rouge.

The new crane is powered by electricity and can move 25 cubic yards of grain with each scoop of its clam-shell bucket.

“It has the capability of unloading barges directly into the grain elevator or taking the place of it in times of high water,” said Jay Hardman, executive director of the port. “It’s an opportunity to get around those problems and create additional capacity and through-put for the grain elevator, plus possibly handling some commodities that wouldn’t typically be handled there.”

The Port of Greater Baton Rouge said the $7 million crane was fully funded by Louisiana’s capital outlay program.