Wisconsin’s domestic and international shipping season on the Great Lakes began in March. Late-season ice, limited ice-breaking capability, snarled supply chains, and fluctuating demand due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have all had an effect on the early shipping season.
The Port of Green Bay opened March 19. The port reported the tonnage total for March and April combined at 140,162 tons, a decrease of 21 percent from the same period the previous year. The leading cargo imports were petroleum, cement and limestone. The leading export was ash. It’s far too early in the season to predict if the port will hit the previous year’s 2-million-ton mark for cargo shipped.
The locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, opened March 25. On March 27 the Burns Harbor was the first ship to leave Port Duluth-Superior, according to the Duluth Port Authority. Only three ships called on the port during March. The first of the salties – oceangoing ships – arrived April 13 in Port Duluth-Superior. That ship, the Resko, sailed from Ijmuiden, Netherlands, to Indiana and then on to Milwaukee, where it was the first international ship to visit that port in 2022. It then steamed to Port Duluth-Superior.
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The Resko brought a cargo of steel to the United States from Europe. It then took on a cargo of wheat, about 21,600 short tons, at the Gavilon Grain Connors Point Terminal in Superior, Wisconsin, before striking out for the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Port Duluth-Superior reports that tonnage shipped through the end of April was 38 percent less as compared to the same time in 2021. Iron ore was the most shipped cargo, but had decreased 42 percent from a year ago. Outbound shipments of grain and beet pulp were almost double from the previous year and exceeded the five-year average by about 24 percent.
The port is located 2,342 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the biggest tonnage port on the Great Lakes and is one of the top 20 ports in the nation.
The Great Lakes Seaway Partnership reported the Port of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, is using a new supply chain to import Danish barley from Quebec. The barley is malted for brewing and is an ingredient added to foods.
The Marine Chamber of Commerce reported Great Lakes cargo shipments via the St. Lawrence Seaway at the end of April were 18 percent less than the same period the previous year, partly due to cold weather. A bright spot was road-salt shipments from Canadian mines that had increased 21 percent compared to the previous year. The salt was shipped to cities in the bi-national region.
The big news from Port Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was not cargo but tourists. Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson announced that the Viking Octantis, a cruise ship operated by Viking Cruises, would in May begin docking in Milwaukee. The ship can carry as many as 378 passengers and is scheduled to cruise the Great Lakes this shipping season. Among its scheduled stops are Port Duluth-Superior and Bayfield, Wisconsin. Summer plans for Port Milwaukee include 33 port calls by cruise ships, bringing more than 10,000 passengers to the city. In the most recent cruise-ship season of 2019, only 10 port calls by cruise ships were made there.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced March 21 the opening of the navigation season on the upper Mississippi River. After two years of drought in the northern parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, ample – and in some areas overabundant – precipitation has fallen this spring. Water levels in the upper Mississippi River are high and rising. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service reported that for the week of April 9 barged-grain movements totaled 765,900 tons as 509 barges moved downriver toward the Gulf of Mexico.
“The river-barge season started out slow with a lack of ability to get many barges early, partly because of the late-spring planting season,” said Jim Larson, manager of Red Wing Grain in Red Wing, Minnesota. “The fertilizer barges were slow to unload upriver with the farmer not able to do field work. By the end of April we were almost caught up; May has been busy loading close to five barges a day.
“The river level peaked around May 21s, at 11.6 feet, just below the 12-foot action-flood stage in Red Wing. We were very fortunate to keep loading through the high water and did not have to hire a crane to take the covers off of the barges in order to get our spout in the barges. We are fortunate that our local farmers did get most of the crop in the ground in the last few weeks and have good soil moisture to start this crop out even though it was planted a few weeks later than normal.”
Jim Larson
According to the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, rail service has become an issue this spring. Unreliable rail service was reported, including unfilled car orders, delays, missed switches and poor customer assistance. To address the issue the Surface Transportation Board convened a public hearing April 7. The issues are due in part to unforeseen major weather events.
The war in Ukraine and the associated disruptions in petroleum supplies has caused 31 nations to draw on their petroleum reserves in an effort to stabilize fuel prices. That’s expected to add more than 1 million barrels of oil per day to world supplies to replace energy normally exported by Russia. Increases in fuel prices are being felt in all sectors of transportation and are contributing to increased prices for agricultural commodities.
With the world facing war, regional famine, pandemic diseases, transportation and supply-chain snarls, and worldwide price inflation, the remainder of the 2022 shipping season will likely be unpredictable. Agricultural commodities are likely to be in extreme demand as are petroleum products, but both with inflated prices.
Could decreasing shipments of some commodities like iron ore could be an early indicator of a coming recession due to inflated interest rates, levels of consumer demand and the quantitative tightening in the bond market by the Federal Reserve that began June 1? It would probably take a combination of a good crystal ball and a well-worn Ouija board to predict what will come next. The one certainty is that it’s going to be an exciting season for the shipping and commodities markets.
This is an original article written for Agri-View, a Lee Enterprises agricultural publication based in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit AgriView.com for more information.
Jason Maloney is an “elderly” farm boy from Marinette County, Wisconsin. He’s a retired educator, a retired soldier and a lifelong Wisconsin resident. He lives on the shore of Lake Superior with his wife, Cindy Dillenschneider, and Red, a sturdy loyal Australian Shepherd.
