A shipping line with vessels named after songs and characters from “The Lion King” is starting new service connecting China with the Port of Charleston, and it will help to fill some of the vacant berth slots at the underutilized Leatherman Terminal.
Singapore-based Sea Lead has the North Charleston terminal on its list of East Coast stops for the new AEC Service that will move freight through the Panama Canal. The first ship — named Hakuna Matata, which means “no worries” according to the catchy hit tune from the 1994 Disney animated film — was scheduled to dock at Leatherman over the weekend.
The next vessel in the rotation, scheduled to arrive June 9, is named Simba after the movie’s protagonist lion.
The carrier’s twice-a-month service — Sea Lead’s first direct route to the East Coast — will employ vessels carrying an average of 6,500 containers measured in 20-foot increments.
In addition to Charleston, the service will make East Coast stops at the Port of Virginia, the Port of New York and New Jersey and the Port of Jacksonville. The service also has three stops at Chinese ports and one in South Korea.
It will also provide more work for the Leatherman, which has seen limited activity since opening more than a year ago because of an unresolved labor dispute between the State Ports Authority and the International Longshoremen’s Association, the union that represents dockworkers.
“We are delighted to introduce this new service and new destinations for our customers,” Cho Kit Wei, the carrier’s managing director, said in a written statement. “Port congestion has been a challenge for everyone recently and the AEC will allow us to service ports that are more efficient for our customers. We are confident that the market and our partners will respond well to the service, and we look forward to developing strong partnerships on this trade lane.”
The new service from Sea Lead adds to its existing services that cover the Far East to U.S., India, Middle East, Mediterranean, Oceania and Europe, with further expansions planned.
The iconic Coburg Cow has been watching over Savannah Highway from its St. Andrews Shopping Center location since the 1950s. The company that bought Coburg is shutting down its North Charleston dairy on May 31. File/Staff
Expiration date
The end of May marks the end of an era.
Borden Dairy is set to close its 177-worker North Charleston plant effective May 31 under a plan to pull out of the South Carolina retail market, citing the results of a recent financial and operational review.
The company announced the shutdown of the Lacross Road operation in April, more than 100 years after a local farmer started the business off Savannah Highway.
“While the decision was a difficult one, the company has determined that it could no longer support the location’s continued operation,” Borden said.
It also said workers who remained through the closing date would be eligible for extra financial benefits such as severance pay and that it would provide employees with opportunities to apply at other locations and offer help finding new jobs.
The shutdown will leave the Dallas-based Borden with 13 plants, including one near Atlanta. It follows the $340 million sale of the company two years ago to private equity investors KKR and Capitol Peak Partners. The deal closed about six months after the debt-laden dairy giant filed for bankruptcy protection in early 2020. At that time, Borden, famous for its “Elsie” cow mascot, said it bought milk from 23 farms in South Carolina.
Borden took over the North Charleston site when it acquired the operations of locally based Coburg Dairy from Dean Foods in 2011. Coburg, which was started by Frank Hanckel Sr. in 1920 in West Ashley, relocated to Lacross Road in the late 1980s.
As for Bessie and the famous Coburg Cow sign near the original dairy farm, a Borden spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from The Post and Courier, but a company representative told a local TV station last month that the plant closing would have “no effect” on the Savannah Highway landmark.
The three ship berths at the State Ports Authority’s Wando Welch Terminal had been full for months. The backlog is now easing. File/Provided
Giving the all clear
A makeshift maritime parking lot off the South Carolina coast is no more.
Asked last week about the number of ships waiting for berth space at the North Charleston or Wando Welch terminals, state ports chief Jim Newsome was quick to interject.
“We don’t have a backlog,” he said Wednesday. “We have cleared the backlog of ships.”
At the peak of the supply chain snarl, two dozen or more anchored cargo vessels could be spotted on marine tracking websites cooling their jets offshore. The congestion hit the Port of Charleston in late November.
The main culprit was a flood of imported goods driven by online shoppers. That, in turn, set off a transportation industry domino effect that left many U.S. ports with a too many containers on their docks.
Last week, Newsome said, was the first time in recent memory that “we’ve had vacant berths except when ships are transitioning” out of the harbor.
“We’re in pretty good shape right now,” he added.
As a port executive whose business is based on volume, he also sees the flip side.
“I don’t like vacant berths,” Newsome said.
Help wanted
The regulatory agency that oversees Santee Cooper is looking for a few good independent advisers to review the electricity provider’s plan to meet demand next year.
The S.C. Public Service Commission is seeking qualified independent third-party consultants to review the 2023 “Integrated Resource Plan” — a roadmap for how the state-owned utility intends to serves its customers’ power needs based on current demand.
Consultants selected by the panel will evaluate the legal filings and provide professional oral and written analyses of documents included in the IRP. They also will replicate all models and production cost simulations conducted by the utility to support its proposal.
Every three years, the Moncks Corner-based Santee Cooper is required to submit a detailed plan that balances system reliability with environmental responsibility at a reasonable cost.
The utility will submit its 2023 IRP next May.
Firms or individuals interested in reviewing and providing analysis of Santee Cooper’s 2023 resource plan must file a proposal with the Public Service Commission by July 18.
State legislators gave the PSC and the Office of Regulatory Staff the authority to seek proposals from outside experts to review Santee Cooper’s power generation plans as part the reforms imposed on the utility after its role in V.C. Summer nuclear project debacle.
Legislators considered selling Santee Cooper after it and South Carolina Electric & Gas abandoned an expansion of the Midlands plant in mid-2017 following years of delays and cost overruns. The doomed investment is costing electric ratepayers billions of dollars already spent on the project.
While the idea of selling Santee Cooper fizzled, a reform bill that Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law a year ago gives the state more influence over the utility’s business operations.
