Welcome to the Port of Beaumont's newest frontier.

In 2007 and 2008, Port of Beaumont commissioners awarded contracts totaling more than $20 million for the port's first major use of its property along the Sabine-Neches Waterway's eastern shores in Orange County, Texas.

In June 2007, the port began storing thousands of tons of pipe for nearby liquefied natural gas terminal construction on the waterway's east bank. Also that year, commissioners approved contracts to extend an access road to the property from Interstate 10 and develop more than 30 acres of fenced, open storage.

Construction will begin in spring 2008 on a new 650-foot deepwater general cargo wharf.

The changes are the first part of an ambitious $52.5 million capital improvement project that will allow the port to expand its capacity by incorporating portions of the 825 acres it has owned in Orange County since 1937.

A dredge works near the site where the port will build a new cargo wharf. The port is making its first use of hundreds of acres it has owned since 1937.