GLIN==> October Decrease in Coal Loadings on Lakes Smallest Yet This Year

CLEVELAND-Coal shipments on the Great Lakes were down only 5 percent in October compared to a year ago.  That is the smallest decrease registered yet this year.  In previous months, the decline has ranged from 17 percent to nearly 100 percent.  

 

Whether or not the October total - 3.7 million net tons - announces a turnaround for the trade remains to be seen.  Much will depend on if utilities foresee growing demand for power during the winter and hence the need to increase stockpiles during the final 2½ months of navigation.

 

The seasonal decline in water levels was evident in vessels' payloads in October.  Over a period of 21 days, a 1,000-foot-long vessel had to trim 750 tons from its total because of reduced draft.  The loss of those tons meant that 1.2 percent of the vessel's carrying capacity had been negated in just three weeks.  

 

The ship was already forfeiting 6,000 tons each trip to the dredging crisis.  The latest estimate of the amount of sediment clogging Great Lakes ports and waterways is 15 million cubic yards.  While water levels are seasonal and cyclical, the dredging crisis was entirely avoidable and can be resolved if the government will spend what it takes in each year in cargo taxes meant to fund dredging.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates it needs $180 million to restore the Great Lakes Navigation System.  The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, the repository for tax dollars targeted at dredging, has a surplus of nearly $5 billion.

 

Year-to-date, coal shipments stand at 24.3 million tons, a decrease of 24 percent compared to a year ago.  The trade is more than 26 percent off the 5-year average for the January-October timeframe.

 

See attached for more details.

 

Glen G. Nekvasil

Vice President-Corporate Communications

Lake Carriers' Association

Suite 720

20325 Center Ridge Road

Rocky River, OH  44116

   P:  440-333-9996

   F:  440-333-9993

   C:  216-702-6360

   E:  nekvasil at lcaships.com <mailto:nekvasil at lcaships.com> 

 




This email and any attached files are confidential and intended solely for the intended recipient(s). If you are not the named recipient you should not read, distribute, copy or alter this email. Any views or opinions expressed in this email are those of the author and do not represent those of the  company. Warning: Although precautions have been taken to make sure no viruses are present in this email, the company cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage that arise from the use of this email or attachments.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/glin-announce/attachments/20091110/c0c1f0af/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: coal1009-text.pdf
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 99286 bytes
Desc: coal1009-text.pdf
Url : http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/glin-announce/attachments/20091110/c0c1f0af/attachment.obj 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: coal1009-tabular.pdf
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 111576 bytes
Desc: coal1009-tabular.pdf
Url : http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/glin-announce/attachments/20091110/c0c1f0af/attachment-0001.obj