Undredged waters keep ships at only 90% capacity in May
July 01, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Source: LCA
The Lake Carriers Association reports that trade on the Great Lakes continues to suffer from a lack of investment in dredging. Despite an increase in shipments of both coal and iron ore in May over the same period last year, top loads again represented only about 90 percent of the largest vessels’ designed carrying capacity. As a result, coal shipments in May were limited to 4.4 million net tons.
Shipments of iron ore on the Great Lakes totaled 7.3 million net tons in May, an increase of 15.4 percent compared to a year ago, and some 16.4 percent better than the month’s 5-year average. Rising water levels and high steel demand have helped push trade levels up, but many of the largest vessels could have carried another 5,000-6,000 tons per trip if sufficient dredging was carried out, says the LCA.
