Guest wrote:hausen wrote:Guest wrote:Hypotthetically, could a Canadian footer load at a US ore port and unload at a US port such as Ashtabula strictly for the purpose of a transload location onto Canadian Seaway size boats ? Would this be allowed under US laws ?
I was under the impression that this procedure was a semi-regular occurrence at some point during the last few years. Weren't thousand footers moving iron ore pellets from Lake Superior to an Ohio port, discharging into a stockpile, and then Canadian 740'-ers were re-loading the pellets and taking them to Quebec City for transshipment overseas?
Yes, you're correct but that scenario doesn't match the question. In the scenario you described the footers are US flagged and moving cargo from a US port to a US port. Reloading onto a Canadian boat from a US port for delivery to a Canadian port is also perfectly legal and is done routinely. The question was essentially asking if Canadian flagged footers and Seaway boats could use a port like Ashtabula as a convenient port to temporarily store and transload ore; all involving Canadian boats.
Understood! For some reason I was thinking if Algoma purchased a thousand footer or two they might leave at least one of them under a U.S. subsidiary and flying the U.S. flag. It was that scenario I was assuming when asking the above question. Thanks for the clarification!
As stated by other posts above - if a company were to try to use a theoretically Canadian-flagged footer as part of the chain of transport for U.S.-sourced iron ore pellets or U.S.-sourced grain headed down the Seaway, they'd likely have to do direct vessel-to-vessel transfers in Canadian waters, or figure out a way to build a transshipment facility on eastern Lake Erie.
Seems like there could be potential for some of the high-cubic capacity thousand footers to enter the grain trade as coal tonnage declines. This would be dependent on what kind of physical modifications could be made to upper lakes grain terminals, and to the ships' cargo / unloading systems to minimize aforementioned handling impact on grain. Modifications might also be made to unloading booms to enable ship's effectiveness as direct transfer platforms. Or maybe a shore-side elevator or pierside/floating transfer apparatus would make more sense. This would also of course be dependent on whether a company could find the right procedural and logistical practices to make for a smooth operation.
If these things were work-able, it's not a terrible stretch of the imagination to see high-cube thousand footers loading grain at Superior or Thunder Bay and meeting ocean vessels in eastern Lake Erie to load them up, or using a storage barge, floating transfer equipment, or shoreside elevator as an intermediary.
Another possibility would be to use Seaway-sized lakers as 'chase vessels' to bring oceangoing ships' top-off cargoes of grain along with them from the same origin elevator on the upper lakes. Currently many Seaway-sized salties stop at one of the deep-draft lower St. Lawrence ports to take on an extra 5,000 - 12,000 tons of grain so that they have full holds before heading overseas. This grain is often brought down the Seaway on lakers, unloaded at elevator, stored there, and then elevated again to bring it out to the ocean ship when they stop to "top up." Seems possible that a properly-rigged self-unloading laker could instead load that bit of grain at the same upper Lakes terminal that the ocean ship loaded at, head down the Seaway just ahead of or just behind the ocean ship, and then transfer it directly into the ocean ship somewhere on the lower St. Lawrence. That might slightly reduce the amount of elevation cycles the grain cargo experiences on its way to its destination. Wonder if this couldn't keep a river-class self-unloader or two busy for part of each shipping season. If it proved to be significantly more efficient for certain grain cargoes it might even induce movement of grain through the Seaway that might've otherwise gone to the coast by rail.