The Gott, with its extra-long self-unloading boom, relatively new engines, and reportedly extra robust construction, could possibly be an appealing iron ore pellet carrier for Cliffs. The Munson has the advantage of a forward-mounted boom, new engines, relatively high cubic capacity for a ship its size, and just had its unloading tower rebuilt from a bucket elevator system to a loop belt system.Jon Paul wrote:
I highly doubt Cliffs would be interested in the GLF fleet.
As you said, seems unlikely Cliffs would be particularly interested in much of the rest of the GLF fleet unless they were looking at the big-picture advantages of owning an entire fleet of ships. In that case they'd have to be willing to make long-term investments in those ships and be willing to wait patiently before those investments started paying for themselves as the company reaped the benefits of controlling one's own raw materials transportation costs.
If Cliffs wanted to do such a thing with the GLF ships, it would likely have to be looking at re-powering all of the remaining ships besides Gott and Munson, and either making sure the unloading shuttles on the Speer and Blough match up with the receiving hopper at Burns Harbor, Indiana, or at least putting a conventional slewing unloading boom on the Speer.
Highly unlikely but interesting to imagine what the Munson or Blough or even the Gottwould look like in the CML / ex-Inland Steel colors scheme.