NATCHEZ — The Natchez-Adams County Port Commission instructed its port director Wednesday to look into what benefits being an international port of exit or entry could bring to Adams County.

The move came after Port Director Anthony Hauer told the board he’d received inquiries about the port’s status as a port of exit or entry from two entities — Genesis Energy and Natchez Inc.

Genesis Energy moves petroleum products from Canada through the Adams County port by rail and barge.

Hauer said he had thought that the port had permission to function as a port of entry or exit for the import or export of foreign goods because of the former industrial output by the now shuttered industries, such as International Paper.

“There was a customs office in Natchez at one time,” he said. “But whatever permissions at one time existed do not now.”

Before moving forward, port commission members told Hauer to find out more about what getting the status would entail and to talk with the directors of other ports that already have the status.

“What you don’t want to do is get some status and never use it, and then have a lot of red tape but no benefit from it,” Commission Member Lee Jones said.

In other news:

4The port has been allocated $618,000 in port and multimodal improvement funds through a Mississippi Department of Transportation grant for 2016, Hauer said.

The funds will be used to resurface the levee road in the port and purchase forklifts, he said.

4For the month of May, the port generated $244,000 in revenue and moved 59,062 tons of material, Hauer said.

The port had a total of 27 barges dock, 12 of which used the liquid loading dock, he said.

Of those barges, four were for rice alone, because the price of rice has gone up worldwide, and farmers who had rice in storage are moving it out to take advantage of the new prices, he said.