SMET Coal Terminal plans to close by July 2026.

[Guest]

This probably means that dreams of returning any of the laided up boats to service are over.

It depends. The smaller boats can be more versatile than the 1000-footers. They can fit at tighter docks and haul other loads… like limestone.

It all hinges on what contracts are up for grabs. The Anderson and the Clarke are in layup because their limestone runs went to another fleet this season.

Perhaps - but won't there be a ripple down effect? All the mid-size boats that sometimes carried ore long haul to Chicago, Cleveland, and Conneaut will be displaced by the availability of surplus footers. And remember lime stone season is much shorter than ore or coal. We'll see.

[Guest]

This probably means that dreams of returning any of the laided up boats to service are over.

It depends. The smaller boats can be more versatile than the 1000-footers. They can fit at tighter docks and haul other loads… like limestone.

It all hinges on what contracts are up for grabs. The Anderson and the Clarke are in layup because their limestone runs went to another fleet this season.

[Guest]

This probably means that dreams of returning any of the laided up boats to service are over.

[Duluth guest]

Nanticoke was never converted to burn gas

Thank you for the correction!

[Guest]

So what boats are most at risk?

Considering that it was Interlake and American Steamship that hauled most of the coal runs… with each usually sending one footer to SMET each week… one might assume that the least efficient footer from each fleet might be put into layup. However, the closing of SMET may lead Interlake or American Steamship to pursue other contracts. If they can successfully pick up other contracts, then the hurt may be passed onto other fleets.

I also wonder if we might simply see boats running shorter seasons. There may be less pressure to start at the end of March and to run all the way to mid January. If some boats start later and/or layup earlier, they could avoid running when ice and weather is most difficult.

[Guest]

The former rail to water dock is demolished but MobilEx terminal in Thunder Bay also loads from railcars directly onto vessels

[Guest]

Here is what I don’t understand. St. Clair and Monroe plan to burn coal through at least 2028. Where is that coal going to come from? Rail it all the way to the power plant? Or load directly from the train to the ship?

Most likely switch to rail as demand further decreases along with the need to deplete the coal stockpiled on site at the plants scheduled to shutdown. In addition, is it possible that low sulfur coal could be brought in from other sources, or could any of the few facilities remaining be given any necessary modifications to operate with eastern coal? I'm not familiar with operational differences using other types of coal would entail, but surely DTE won't be too concerned if it shortens the life of any of the equipment.

Trains cannot load directly into ships and that is why this dock, and others were built.

This will likely lead to the end of at least a few US lakers and most likely at least one of the thousand footers as there is no reason to believe there will be any sizable increase in other cargoes to make up this shortfall.
[/quote

I agree with much of your post except…. Ships are loaded directly by rail via the hopper car dumpers at Toledo and Sandusky. Last I knew they still loaded coal cargoes this way. Rail to water in Chicago? Not sure about that place now.. been retired too many years to know😂

[Guest]

So what boats are most at risk?

[Otis]

Nanticoke was never converted to burn gas

[Duluth Guest]

SMET is a relatively modern facility, opened in May 1976 and expanded in 1993… I wonder if it could be used to ship iron ore pellets?

Word on the waterfront has it that this option has been explored a bit. Given the big difference in density between iron ore pellets and coal, converting SMET to handle iron ore pellets seems likely to involve a major reconstruction of a substantial portion of the terminal’s numerous and lengthy conveyor belt systems. So it’s possible but it seems like it would be a complex process to make such a swap.

A possibly more likely switchover in commodities might be converting a coal-capable facility to one that handles something like potash, which is sort of a hot commodity right now, but that might be out of SMET’s reach given the complexity and uncertainty surrounding cross-border tariffs between the U.S. and Canada; if I’m not mistaken most potash mined in North America comes out of Canada, so a theoretical swap of SMET to potash export business would involve the material going from Canada to the U.S. to overseas. That’s a complicated prospect these days.

There are a lot of broad possibilities that SMET’s extensive rail loop provides, aside from the rest of the facility’s infrastructure. If the nearby grain elevators on the Superior, WI waterfront had conveyor belt connections to newly-constructed railcar unloading pits built on the existing SMET rail loop - suddenly those elevators could receive grain from long “shuttle” style grain trains without all of the extra work and rail switching involved in having to break up the railcars into multiple shorter strings to fit them into the elevators’ existing trackage for dumping. That sort of continuous unbroken shuttle train capacity seems all the rage in modern-day rail-to-sail grain shipping terminals like the ones recently built at North Vancouver, BC and Longview, WA.

Here is what I don’t understand. St. Clair and Monroe plan to burn coal through at least 2028. Where is that coal going to come from? Rail it all the way to the power plant? Or load directly from the train to the ship?

The shipping channel at Monroe, MI is apparently not nearly deep enough to handle a fully-loaded thousand footer. As long as both the Monroe plant and the Belle River Power Plant (which has a nice deepwater dock for thousand footers to unload at) are operating, draft limitations at Monroe don’t matter because thousand footers can fully load at SMET and bring a split cargo to St Clair (feeding Belle River PP) and Monroe, offloading at St. Clair/Belle River first until they’re drafting shallow enough to access Monroe, at which point they sail to Monroe and deliver there. After Belle River Power Plant stops burning coal in 2028-ish (that’s expected to be a few years before Monroe stops taking coal), there won’t be that split destination option for Monroe to piggyback on, and apparently the shipping companies don’t think the math works out on sending in partial cargoes to Monroe only or using smaller ships. As was mentioned previously in this thread, both Belle River plant and Monroe can take coal via rail. Now that the annual tonnage being moved by water has dwindled as much as it has, switching the remainder over to rail might just be possible, especially if the power plants’ overall consumption of coal is down, which it might be.

Perhaps the dock could be used to export western coal, although the size limitations of the Seaway would make competing with east and west coast ports difficult.

There has been some export business moving through the SMET facility in recent years. Not long ago, there was some loading going directly onto ocean ships for direct export overseas - I think this was mostly petroleum coke but I could be wrong. A bit further into the past, after tonnage really dropped off through SMET when Ontario Power at Nanticoke switched to burning gas c. 2010, there were a few years where a considerable volume of coal was going via SMET onto Canadian gearless bulkers (like CSL’s quartet of 1980/’81 -vintage, Belgian-built ex Seawaymax salties, or CSL’s pair of similar Scottish-built bulkers) for delivery to the transshipment facility at Quebec City, where it was stockpiled and reloaded onto bigger deep-sea bulkers for export to Europe. So SMET gave the export business a shot for a while, but that seems to have dried up too.

[Guest]

Here is what I don’t understand. St. Clair and Monroe plan to burn coal through at least 2028. Where is that coal going to come from? Rail it all the way to the power plant? Or load directly from the train to the ship?

Most likely switch to rail as demand further decreases along with the need to deplete the coal stockpiled on site at the plants scheduled to shutdown. In addition, is it possible that low sulfur coal could be brought in from other sources, or could any of the few facilities remaining be given any necessary modifications to operate with eastern coal? I'm not familiar with operational differences using other types of coal would entail, but surely DTE won't be too concerned if it shortens the life of any of the equipment.

Trains cannot load directly into ships and that is why this dock, and others were built.

This will likely lead to the end of at least a few US lakers and most likely at least one of the thousand footers as there is no reason to believe there will be any sizable increase in other cargoes to make up this shortfall.

[Mr Link]

Here is what I don’t understand. St. Clair and Monroe plan to burn coal through at least 2028. Where is that coal going to come from? Rail it all the way to the power plant? Or load directly from the train to the ship?

I can see a couple of scenarios playing out. 1) Another company might step in and operate the coal dock long term or even short term. (DTE scheduled to stop using coal by 2032.) Koch Industries (KBX subsidiary) or C. Reiss come to mind. Perhaps the dock could be used to export western coal, although the size limitations of the Seaway would make competing with east and west coast ports difficult. 2) Coal goes to all rail shipment. Both Monroe and Belle River are set up to receive coal by train. And the coal already travels by rail from eastern Wyoming to Superior. Just divert those trains through Chicago or Kansas City to eastern Michigan. The proposed merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern merger could possibly make that a one railroad haul to Monroe of the merger is approved and they get a coal contract. Even to Belle River would be mostly UP/NS except for the last few miles.

[Guest]

Here is what I don’t understand. St. Clair and Monroe plan to burn coal through at least 2028. Where is that coal going to come from? Rail it all the way to the power plant? Or load directly from the train to the ship?

[Duluth guest]

Worth noting that tonnage through the facility has already dwindled so much in recent years that these days annual throughput / ship loadings only equate to of full-time employment for two of the thousand-footers, a mere 25% of the peak tonnage reached c. 17 years ago. Seems like the facility might operate for part of the season next year, so the long-term net effect might mean the layup of two thousand footers or an equivalent tonnage in smaller/older ships, depending on how things shake out, but we might not witness that long-term / net effect until later in the 2026 season or maybe fit-out 2027.

[Guest]

SMET is a relatively modern facility, opened in May 1976 and expanded in 1993, but without a contract I can't see how it could be kept open for the occasional coal train. I wonder if it could be used to ship iron ore pellets?

The traditional steel blast furnace industry isn't exactly humming, especially with the vast majority of raw steel production now done in the southern states.

[Guest]

I think well knew it was coming but it is still tough news. They are shipping around 5 million tons per year, which is about two 1000 footers. You can assume that the PRT will move to shipping pellets and less efficient vessels will stay at the wall. The ore shipment contracts will become even more competitive.

[Denny]

I would agree with you Mr. Guest but I’m sure the companies knew this day was coming and I’m sure they have made preparations and plans for this for a very long time. Yes, while I agree that you may see more ships at the wall in 2026 due to this news, I would think many of the footers may carry more iron ore pellet cargoes instead. I would think Lake Michigan mills may see an increase in traffic such as Indiana and Burns Harbor along with Gary. Down on the Lower Lakes, ports such as Cleveland might see a few more footer ore loads than normal then. I don’t think places like Toledo see many footer ore loads there as I know they get a few at Torco sometimes. Nanticoke gets a few loads at times from the Gott and maybe the Presque Isle but other than that basically, I can’t see any other ports on Lake Erie getting ore shipments from footers other than Conneaut. Ashtabula to my knowledge doesn’t get any footer traffic there with ore loads like it used to at times. There’s been a few times in the past where the footers would carry limestone and I wonder if we could see that happening next season? It will surely then be an interesting year & season in 2026 and future as well for shipping then.

[Guest]

Well we all knew the day was coming. You’ll see several boats stay at the wall after it closes.

[Mr Link]

DTE announced today (Oct 31, 2025) that it plans to close the Superior Midwest Energy Terminal in Superior, Wisconsin next summer. Their lease on the property expires June 30, 2026 and they don't feel it is economical to renew the lease.

Watch the news page on the main site for coverage and updates over the next few days.

https://www.northernnewsnow.com/2025/10 ... next-year/