Tuesday, April 23, 2024 | St. Lawrence County, NY
This season’s shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway is down 10 percent from last year, according to the Chamber of Marine Commerce. The number of vessels now in the Great Lakes-Seaway system exceeds …
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This season’s shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway is down 10 percent from last year, according to the Chamber of Marine Commerce.
The number of vessels now in the Great Lakes-Seaway system exceeds the five-year average as ships deliver supplies and make a final push to export grain before the Seaway closes Dec. 30.
“The 2015 shipping season has been a bellwether for North American economic trends,” said Chamber of Marine Commerce President Stephen Brooks. “Ships are delivering cement, stone, gypsum, aluminum and machinery to support an eight-year high in U.S. construction spending, along with growth in the automotive sector in Great Lakes states. But steep declines in global consumption and pricing have largely halted coal and iron ore exports via the waterway this season and that continues,” Brooks said.
Across the board, total year-to-date (April 2 through Nov. 30) cargo on the Seaway was 31.5 million metric tons, down 10.4 per cent, the press release from the Chamber of Marine Commerce said.
New business has helped to offset shortfalls with figures from April 2 to Nov. 30 showing that the St. Lawrence Seaway attracted 1.7 million metric tons of cargo either coming from new origins or heading to new destinations. This included salt imports from Morocco, Egypt and Venezuela to Midwest ports.
Domestic general cargo via the Seaway saw an increase of 27.7 percent this season, which is due mainly to increased shipments of aluminum ingots traveling from Sept-Iles, Quebec to ports in Oswego, New York and Toledo, Ohio for the automotive industry and other uses.
Movements of large-scale machinery and other project cargo like wind turbines nearly doubled this season, up 92 percent.
Year-to-date Seaway shipments of construction materials such as cement and stone were up 15 percent and 20 percent respectively.
The Chamber of Marine Commerce, based in Ottawa, say they are “a bi-national association that represents more than 150 marine industry stakeholders including major Canadian and American shippers, ports, terminals and marine service providers, as well as domestic and international ship owners.”
