by hausen » March 6, 2022, 6:36 pm
Guest wrote:
Another area that could be impacted is Russian wheat sales. With those sales now cut-off, it may allow increased movements of Canadian and US wheat into those countries who have put sanctions on Russia. Of course, wheat is not moved in thousand-footers.
Given the impending decline of coal tonnage, seems like it would be wise for U.S. Lakes shipping companies to explore future options for their thousand footers.
What follows is pure armchair speculation:
Wonder whether a thousand footer could find a competitive niche in loading grain at the farthest-inland ports on the Lakes, then bringing said grain to eastern Lake Erie where it could be transferred directly to oceangoing ships. For ocean fleet operators that have a ship that's finishing cargo unload at Cleveland, Buffalo, Ramey's Bend, Port Weller, or possibly even Hamilton, Toronto, or Oshawa, it could save them from having to spend the time/fuel/pilotage fees entailed in sailing light all the way from the lower Lakes to Thunder Bay, Duluth-Superior, or S. Lake Michigan to pick up a grain cargo.
This would require some modifications to the thousand footer to be able to handle grain and use its self-unloading boom to efficiently fill a saltie's holds. It would require good working relationships between the Lake fleet/operator, the ocean carrier, and the handful of grain terminals at the aforementioned ports that could actually handle loading a thousand-footer. It would also require an attitude of built-in schedule flexibility on the part of the company operating the thousand footer, since on each trip to Lake Erie the ship would likely be transferring cargo to multiple ocean ships, and may sometimes have to wait around for a few days in the event that the perfect timing doesn't work out re: when ocean ships finish unloading and become available to receive a grain transshipment.
If the aforementioned potential challenges proved reasonably surmountable, and if the hypothetical thousand footer employed in the grain transshipment trade had fuel efficient propulsion and perhaps could manage to slow-steam its way from the grain loading ports to the transshipment location, it could potentially move the grain 750 - 850 NM / 1,300km - 1,500km at very low freight rates, saving an ocean operator 2-3 round trips of twice that length each. Such an operation might prove well-suited to contracts that require around 45,000-60,000 metric tons of grain at a time; enough to fill or nearly fill a thousand footer, and to be the right amount to be transferred to 2-3 oceangoing bulk cargo ships of the size that frequent the Seaway/Lakes. I'm sure such a practice wouldn't be optimized for every instance of export grain, but with a round-trip time of roughly 2+ weeks it would only take a demand of a handful of such cargoes each year to keep a thousand footer busy through a significant part of the shipping season. It could work well for a ship that moves grain during periods of high demand and switches to working the iron ore pellet trade during lulls in grain movement.
This type of move has more or less already been carried out in high volumes with iron ore pellets that are bound for Quebec City and an additional transfer there to large ocean ships for export overseas. If I'm not mistaken, this hypothetical thousand footer grain transshipment practice wouldn't necessarily represent any additional handling steps for a grain cargo than already exist along the trade route of moving grain on 740' lakers from western Lakes ports to St. Lawrence River terminals for for transshipment to oceangoing vessels.
In most shipping seasons, a significant number of oceangoing ships leave the Lakes/Seaway in ballast after delivering cargoes. This was especially prevalent last autumn (2021), when some ocean ships were leaving Lakes ports without cargo and sailing empty all the way to Brazil to load more steel products to bring back to the Lakes. Perhaps a well orchestrated operation involving a thousand footer offering grain load-outs on Lake Erie would offer just enough of a time, fuel, and fee saver to induce ships in to leave the Lakes with cargo vs. in ballast.
Perhaps such a trade might not have been that attractive or necessary in the past. There are, however, several emergent and increasingly prevalent external factors that could render the Lakes/Seaway a more lucrative outlet for export grain than it has been over the past 20 years, especially on the U.S. side. The multi-faceted weather chaos in the Pacific Northwest / Southern B.C. over the past year revealed the precarious nature of rail linkages between the western interior of the continent and western coastal ports, and signs only point to more potential for such disruptions in the coming year. There's also precedent for weather events disrupting the grain trade at the outlet of the Mississippi River; the drought and extreme low water levels in the late 1980s stranded Mississippi River barge tows and lead to more export grain moveing through U.S. lake ports instead. A similar disruption and re-routing of business happened at a smaller scale in the months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This past August (2021), Hurricane Ida did significant damage to several grain export facilities in the same region. In the coming decades such extreme weather disruptions are likely to become more common in that region as well. The Great Lakes offer a relatively stable and presently under-utilized alternative for grain movement. The Canadian side of the Lakes has already experienced a resurgence in the grain trade, starting around 8 years ago. U.S. Lakes ports and shipping operators might find it worthwhile to use the inherent advantages that the Lakes offer in the coming decades to pursue and encourage competitiveness in the grain trade in a similar way, especially in light of future factors that would highlight Lakes grain trade advantages (rising fuel costs, coastal weather disruptions). Perhaps thousand footers looking for work in light of declining coal tonnage could play a role in that.
Alternately, or additionally, if such a trade promised to be feasible, it could be the factor that finally tips the scales in favor of a Canadian fleet purchasing/operating a thousand foot ship. A Canadian-owned thousand footer could shuttle both grain and iron ore pellets to Lake Erie for transfer out the Welland/Seaway, as well as delivering iron ore pellets to Nanticoke or to the site of hypothetical future HBI type plants on the Canadian side of the lakes.
[quote="Guest"]
Another area that could be impacted is Russian wheat sales. With those sales now cut-off, it may allow increased movements of Canadian and US wheat into those countries who have put sanctions on Russia. Of course, wheat is not moved in thousand-footers.
[/quote]
Given the impending decline of coal tonnage, seems like it would be wise for U.S. Lakes shipping companies to explore future options for their thousand footers.
What follows is pure armchair speculation:
Wonder whether a thousand footer could find a competitive niche in loading grain at the farthest-inland ports on the Lakes, then bringing said grain to eastern Lake Erie where it could be transferred directly to oceangoing ships. For ocean fleet operators that have a ship that's finishing cargo unload at Cleveland, Buffalo, Ramey's Bend, Port Weller, or possibly even Hamilton, Toronto, or Oshawa, it could save them from having to spend the time/fuel/pilotage fees entailed in sailing light all the way from the lower Lakes to Thunder Bay, Duluth-Superior, or S. Lake Michigan to pick up a grain cargo.
This would require some modifications to the thousand footer to be able to handle grain and use its self-unloading boom to efficiently fill a saltie's holds. It would require good working relationships between the Lake fleet/operator, the ocean carrier, and the handful of grain terminals at the aforementioned ports that could actually handle loading a thousand-footer. It would also require an attitude of built-in schedule flexibility on the part of the company operating the thousand footer, since on each trip to Lake Erie the ship would likely be transferring cargo to multiple ocean ships, and may sometimes have to wait around for a few days in the event that the perfect timing doesn't work out re: when ocean ships finish unloading and become available to receive a grain transshipment.
If the aforementioned potential challenges proved reasonably surmountable, and if the hypothetical thousand footer employed in the grain transshipment trade had fuel efficient propulsion and perhaps could manage to slow-steam its way from the grain loading ports to the transshipment location, it could potentially move the grain 750 - 850 NM / 1,300km - 1,500km at very low freight rates, saving an ocean operator 2-3 round trips of twice that length each. Such an operation might prove well-suited to contracts that require around 45,000-60,000 metric tons of grain at a time; enough to fill or nearly fill a thousand footer, and to be the right amount to be transferred to 2-3 oceangoing bulk cargo ships of the size that frequent the Seaway/Lakes. I'm sure such a practice wouldn't be optimized for every instance of export grain, but with a round-trip time of roughly 2+ weeks it would only take a demand of a handful of such cargoes each year to keep a thousand footer busy through a significant part of the shipping season. It could work well for a ship that moves grain during periods of high demand and switches to working the iron ore pellet trade during lulls in grain movement.
This type of move has more or less already been carried out in high volumes with iron ore pellets that are bound for Quebec City and an additional transfer there to large ocean ships for export overseas. If I'm not mistaken, this hypothetical thousand footer grain transshipment practice wouldn't necessarily represent any additional handling steps for a grain cargo than already exist along the trade route of moving grain on 740' lakers from western Lakes ports to St. Lawrence River terminals for for transshipment to oceangoing vessels.
In most shipping seasons, a significant number of oceangoing ships leave the Lakes/Seaway in ballast after delivering cargoes. This was especially prevalent last autumn (2021), when some ocean ships were leaving Lakes ports without cargo and sailing empty all the way to Brazil to load more steel products to bring back to the Lakes. Perhaps a well orchestrated operation involving a thousand footer offering grain load-outs on Lake Erie would offer just enough of a time, fuel, and fee saver to induce ships in to leave the Lakes with cargo vs. in ballast.
Perhaps such a trade might not have been that attractive or necessary in the past. There are, however, several emergent and increasingly prevalent external factors that could render the Lakes/Seaway a more lucrative outlet for export grain than it has been over the past 20 years, especially on the U.S. side. The multi-faceted weather chaos in the Pacific Northwest / Southern B.C. over the past year revealed the precarious nature of rail linkages between the western interior of the continent and western coastal ports, and signs only point to more potential for such disruptions in the coming year. There's also precedent for weather events disrupting the grain trade at the outlet of the Mississippi River; the drought and extreme low water levels in the late 1980s stranded Mississippi River barge tows and lead to more export grain moveing through U.S. lake ports instead. A similar disruption and re-routing of business happened at a smaller scale in the months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This past August (2021), Hurricane Ida did significant damage to several grain export facilities in the same region. In the coming decades such extreme weather disruptions are likely to become more common in that region as well. The Great Lakes offer a relatively stable and presently under-utilized alternative for grain movement. The Canadian side of the Lakes has already experienced a resurgence in the grain trade, starting around 8 years ago. U.S. Lakes ports and shipping operators might find it worthwhile to use the inherent advantages that the Lakes offer in the coming decades to pursue and encourage competitiveness in the grain trade in a similar way, especially in light of future factors that would highlight Lakes grain trade advantages (rising fuel costs, coastal weather disruptions). Perhaps thousand footers looking for work in light of declining coal tonnage could play a role in that.
Alternately, or additionally, if such a trade promised to be feasible, it could be the factor that finally tips the scales in favor of a Canadian fleet purchasing/operating a thousand foot ship. A Canadian-owned thousand footer could shuttle both grain and iron ore pellets to Lake Erie for transfer out the Welland/Seaway, as well as delivering iron ore pellets to Nanticoke or to the site of hypothetical future HBI type plants on the Canadian side of the lakes.