Huge Amount Of Aluminum Rolling Into Port

by Steve Yablonski | April 8, 2018 11:33 pm

OSWEGO – The number of railcars rolling into the Port of Oswego Authority this spring has increased significantly over last year.

“This is the 40th railcar we received since January,” William Scriber, acting executive director of the Port of Oswego Authority, told Oswego County Today. “We basically had no railcars the two previous years. We are aggressively going at increasing our aluminum at the port.”

This is just one example of how the port is making a very productive stride at increasing its aluminum over the last couple years, he added.

The vast majority of the aluminum is headed to the Novelis

“We basically haven’t received aluminum by railcar in about three years, I think,” Scriber said. “In the summer, we started an aggressive outreach to our aluminum producers and brokers and offered some incentives to bring it in via rail, via barge. And this is one of those examples that we’re now seeing aluminum turn around back toward railcar at the port.”

“At one time, we used to receive this volume. Now you’re looking at 40 railcars only since January. This (volume) is really just January, February and March,” he added.

There is typically about 144 pieces per car.

“Add those numbers up quick, and it’s an awful lot of pieces of aluminum coming in by rail,” he said. “Plus we received our first barge in early this year, on April 1.”

It takes three people to handle the off-loading operation.

It takes, depending on barge, 12 to 20 hours, or two to two and half shifts to complete. For railcars three people and, again, depending on the number, 8 to 12 hours and one to one half shifts

The aluminum comes from all over. Some comes from Massena and some from Canada.

“We look to be on an up tick this year overall on our inbound aluminum,” Scriber said.

Aluminum Rail Cars
2016 (2)
2017 (2)
2018 (40 as of April 5!)

Metric Tons Ship and Barge
2017 vs. 2018

2017 April total 10,774 MT
2018 April total 15, 018 MT – Either on dock or en route to dock for April.

That’s a 39% increase over last year.

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/oswego/huge-amount-of-aluminum-rolling-into-port/

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