Port Sulphur, Louisiana

Port Sulphur
CDP
Aerial view of Port Sulphur, Louisiana on the Mississippi River
Country	United States
State	Louisiana
Parish	Plaquemines
Elevation	3 ft (0.9 m)
Coordinates	29°29′40″N 89°42′45″W / 29.49444°N 89.71250°W / 29.49444; -89.71250Coordinates: 29°29′40″N 89°42′45″W / 29.49444°N 89.71250°W / 29.49444; -89.71250
Area	8.5 sq mi (22.0 km2)
- land	5.5 sq mi (14 km2)
- water	3.0 sq mi (8 km2), 35.29%
Population	1,760 (2010)
Density	207.1/sq mi (80.0/km2)
Timezone	CST (UTC-6)
- summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
Area code	504
Location of Port Sulphur in Louisiana
Location of Louisiana in the United States

Port Sulphur is a census-designated place (CDP) on the West Bank of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,760 at the 2010 census.

The name Port Sulphur derives from the Freeport Sulphur Company in the early 1930s, when it set up logistics, refining, storage and shipping operations to support its Frasch Process sulphur mine at Lake Grande Ecaille, located 10 miles west of the town in the nearby marsh. The Grande Ecaille mine was the largest sulphur deposit in the world when it began operation in 1933, and remained in production until 1978. Over time, as other discoveries were made, The Freeport Sulphur Company also used the Port Sulphur facility to support their other Frasch Process sulphur mines located at Garden Island Bay, LA; Lake Pelto, LA; Caillou Island, LA; a land based mine at Chacahoula, LA; The first offshore sulphur mines at Grand Isle, LA and Caminada Pass, LA; and a large operation 50 miles offshore from the Mississippi River Delta in 300 feet of water, at Main Pass Block 299 in the Gulf of Mexico. The facility was also used to process and ship recovered sulphur obtained by oil and gas refining. The terminal was able to filter and store liquid hot molten sulphur in large insulated heated tanks, and "vat" liquid sulphur into acres of long term dry storage by forming blocks of bright yellow sulphur by spraying molten sulphur into metal forms on the ground and allowing to cool. The site is valuable because of its proximity to sulphur producing areas near the Gulf of Mexico, its docking sites along the Mississippi River and back bay marsh.

Port Sulphur was originally a typical company town, with its residents and civic life closely tied to the Freeport Sulphur Company. As time went by,the company divested itself of much of the town property and governance, it became more of a regular town with private individual land ownership. As the number of employees at the site dwindled, the Freeport Company became less important in everyday life and economic activity. At some point in time, most of the company-owned land not necessary for the sulphur operation was transferred to Plaquemines Parish or sold to private owners. The economic fortunes of the Freeport Sulphur Company declined during the 1980s and 1990s, resulting from its merger with McMoRan Exploration, an oil and gas company that neglected the sulphur operations. In the early 2000s Freeport Sulphur shut down operations, as the price of sulphur dropped too low because large amounts of sulphur recovered during petroleum refining and from Canadian natural gas exploration were dumped on the international sulphur market. With inexpensive recovered sulphur in large supply, the large scale and expensive Frasch Process sulphur mining and storage operations proved to be uneconomical and were discontinued. The Freeport-McMoRan Port Sulphur facility was closed and sold. Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of what was left of the sulphur facility in August 2005, with a few buildings remaining. With the closing of Freeport-McMoRan Sulphur, the town has been seeking another economic identity.