A Dutch shipping company is set to launch a monthly liner service between Duluth and Antwerp, Belgium, allowing cargo and containers to traverse the Atlantic Ocean on a regular basis.
Driven By Customer Need
Amsterdam-based Spliethoff expects the first ship could arrive at the Port of Duluth-Superior on May 5. Additional ships will arrive in the port approximately once a month until the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean, closes in late December. Joe Swartout, Spliethoff’s vice president of the Great Lakes and Midwest, said adding the monthly liner is driven by “customer need.” It’s taking too long for containers to travel by train from East Coast and West Coast ports to the Midwest, and Chicago, a major rail hub, is congested, Swartout said.
Jayson Hron, spokesperson for the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, said he hasn’t been able to find the last time a liner service has connected Duluth to Europe. It’s safe to say this will be the first in decades, he said. Oceangoing vessels, or salties, regularly move through the Port of Duluth-Superior, but they have historically been chartered by one shipper on an as-needed basis. This liner service will instead follow a regular schedule and allow multiple shippers to use the same vessel.
Opportunities Felt
“We feel we’ve got great opportunities here, not just with the import, but especially our market tends to be heavy on the export opportunities,” said Jonathan Lamb, president of Duluth Cargo Connect, a partnership between the public Duluth Seaway Port Authority and the private Lake Superior Warehousing. He hopes it will mean businesses in the region have an easier way to send products to Europe. The liner service will “help businesses in our region be more competitive on a global scale,” Lamb said.
The port began moving containers by ship last year, becoming only the second U.S. port on the Great Lakes capable of handling containers after Cleveland. “This liner service can be a significant supply chain advantage for regional customers, reducing cost and supply chain delays, and it’s also a win for the environment,” Deb DeLuca, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, said in a statement.
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Source: Duluthnewstribune
