TO: News Media & Interested Parties
FROM: Lisa Marciniak, Port Promotion Manager
DATE: November 23, 2005

RE: RECORD SETTING CARGO LOADING UPDATE: Pictures

PLEASE NOTE: Due to security regulations, news correspondents and visitors must pre-register with Lake Superior Warehousing Co., Inc., (phone 218-727-6646) in order to gain access to the Clure Public Marine Terminal dockside loading site. A government issued photo I.D. will also be required to enter the site.

The largest single piece of heavy-lift project machinery handled at the Port by Lake Superior Warehousing—which will comprise the largest single load carried on North American railroads—will be offloaded at Duluth’s Clure Public Marine Terminal at approximately 9:30 a.m. today (November 23) onto the world’s largest capacity railcar.

The “hydro cracker” reactor from Dubai, Japan, arrived in Port November 17 aboard Rotterdam-based Jumbo’s vessel Stellaprima. The reactor, which will weigh 805 tons including tension skids and loading bars, will be transported on Westinghouse’s 36-axle Schnabel car to OPTI Canada’s Long Lake Upgrader oil sands project in Northern Alberta.

The Stellaprima was the second of two ships bringing in gigantic pieces of equipment manufactured in Japan, Italy, the Netherlands and India destined for Canada. Jumbo’s vessel Fairlane arrived in Port November 15 with the first portion of the dimensional pieces. Movement of the freight in addition to the reactor mentioned above will also mark a record-setting rail shipment of 61 railcars. This breaks the previous record of 56 railcars required for a Syncrude UE-1 oil sands project that moved through Duluth to Northern Alberta in November 2002.

The previous largest single loads carried on North American railroads also moved through the Port of Duluth-Superior in October 1990, when two Japanese-built cylinders destined for the BiProvicial Upgrader oil project in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, arrived at the Clure Public Marine Terminal aboard the Dutch vessel Starman Asia. The 773-ton cylinders were transported to Canada on the Schnabel car—the world’s largest capacity railcar according to the Association of American Railroads.

The 61 railcars transporting the equipment are scheduled to depart the Port November 30, and the Schnabel car is scheduled to depart December 1.

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CONTACT: Further details regarding the shipments can be obtained from David Coll, Communications Coordinator, Long Lake Project, phone 403-669-9892.

More Press Releases, 2005