Tulsa Ports is reaching new milestones in employment and investments, and the region is reaping the benefits, officials said Thursday.
Tulsa Ports manages the area’s inland port system which connects regional goods to global shipping lanes using a mix of barge and rail. Its two major sites include the Port of Inola and Catoosa. The multi-modal industrial parks are responsible for around $300 million in economic impact each year.
Here are some of the milestones the organization celebrated during its State of the Ports event.
Employment rising
Tulsa Ports is nearing pre-COVID-19 records in employment with 3,900 jobs as of 2026, 400 of which were added this year.
“We lost some stuff over the (last) few years. We went through COVID-19 (and) all the things that caused employment to fall off, and finally here we are flirting with that number again,” David Yarbrough, executive director of Tulsa Ports, told The Eagle. “I believe we’ll exceed that number and have record employment (moving forward).”
Mecad USA, an engineering firm, also selected the Port of Catoosa for its new U.S. headquarters in February. Nearly 300 new jobs are projected to be added.
Investments, Inola smelter proposal on the horizon
Rogers County is working with the town of Inola on engineering a freight crossing corridor. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation is currently in pursuit of a $198 million federal grant to help with costs.
Sofidel is also moving forward with a $770 million expansion to add another million square feet to its 1.8 million-square-foot building.
Another topic of conversation was the $4 billion Inola aluminum smelter, which has garnered national attention with endorsements from the Trump administration and opposition from locals. It was a major topic of debate during Oklahoma’s gubernatorial primary, with Mike Mazzei supporting the proposal and Attorney General Gentner Drummond opposing.
The smelter is expected to produce 750,000 metric tons of aluminum per year, create 1,000 permanent jobs at the facility and generate 4,000 jobs during construction.
Yarbrough pushed back on the idea that Oklahoma was chosen as a place to simply dump the smelter. He said the state was competing with 33 to 35 different locations.
“We won. Oklahoma won that,” he said. “We won it because of our workforce, our energy costs and availability, our people, cost of living, our water supply, our navigation system. We won this project, and we are excited to see what it will help Oklahoma develop.”
Critics of the smelter have voiced concerns on the amount of fluoride emissions that might come from it.
Yarbrough told The Eagle they’ve been waiting for the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency to weigh in on those concerns.
“I think it has been premature to say they’re going to, you know, be a heavy emitter until those studies are done,” he said.
Construction for the smelter is currently in limbo due to an ongoing lawsuit filed by Drummond.
Ismael Lele is a Report for America corps member and writes about business in Tulsa for The Oklahoma Eagle. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting this link.
