On March 19th, the Port of Albany put into service a $4.5 million, 144-tons Liebherr crane. Any day now, weather permitting, a construction company will begin to barge aggregates from a new wharf on the Rensselaer side of the Hudson River, just opposite Albany. And, port officials are keeping their fingers crossed that a new state budget will leave intact a $15 million grant that will enable the port to rebuild an almost century-old wharf and repave a staging yard. “We strive to be a regional economic engine,” said Richard Hendrick, the port’s general manager, in a telephone interview. “We feel we’re well situated with our facilities and the upgrades we’ve made to welcome customers and continue to attract business.” The Port of Albany is in a spirited battle to capture and retain freight business in the highly competitive world of inland waterways and transport. “We don’t take for granted any business we have as always being here, so all the people working the port are high on customer service,” said Hendrick. “We’re making these investments so we can [offer even better service.] I see employment continuing to grow. We will take advantage of every opportunity we can. Albany is a port focused on breakbulk, heavy lift and project cargo. The port can handle five ships simultaneously, something, the two say, few inland ports can match. A few years back a survey listed Albany as one of the top five heavy-lift project cargo ports in the US. It operates almost 150 miles from the Port of New York and New Jersey, but exists in a very long shadow of the giant container port and all the infrastructure, market and networks that complex has to offer. Albany port attempted a container-on-barge program in 2003, fueled by $5.5 million in grant money designed to help mitigate air pollution caused by congestion. But that program ended in 2006(CQ) with the economy slowing. Now, the US economy is again doing well. With the completion of the new Panama Canal and the prospects of even more and bigger ships steaming into New York looming, Albany is again beginning to look for possible container freight customers and a reinstitution of the container-on-barge program. Various improvement projects will certainly help in attracting more business. The new crane can be combined with a smaller Liebherr crane to hoist as much as 225 tons. Before, if the ship itself didn’t have the necessary crane, that kind of heavy lifting required a 1,000-ton crane be barged from New York City. “We’ll have the capability to save the customer time and money,” said Hendrick. General Electric demonstrated the need for this kind of heavy lift. Two years back, GE landed a huge contract to supply gas turbines for nine power plants in Algeria. Some of that equipment is built in GE facilities in Schenectady, about 20 miles from Albany. GE’s business has boosted the port, increasing the “number of vessels substantially,” said Vasil. Last year, the number of vessels using Albany port increased 57%, he said, with longshoreman hours the best in six years. The Rensselaer wharf represents an effort to address a long-neglected portion of the eastern bank of the Hudson River, which lay idle for more than a quarter century. The $8.5 million wharf was completed in October, three months ahead of schedule and under budget, savings that made the purchase of the Liebherr crane possible. The wharf has a capacity of 1,200 pounds per square foot, the same specs as the Albany wharf. Grande Aggregates will lease facilities at the wharf. It will ship a minimum of 60,000 tons annually of aggregates by barge to New York City from upstate quarries. “We hope they’ll exceed that by ten-fold,” Hendrick said. The port is looking for more business to utilize the wharf. At the same time, Hendrick said, the new wharf allows the port more options if ships get backed up in Albany. “We can slide a ship across the river to Rensselaer and still be able to offload the heavy cargo,” said Hendrick. What Rensselaer lacks, he added, is an on-dock rail facility. Albany rail traffic has become a point of major concern in the community. That’s because Albany has become a major transit point for crude oil shipped from the Bakken oil fields in South Dakota, jamming the rail yards with tanker cars. Late last year, one oil terminal operator, Global Partners LLC, dropped plans amidst environmental opposition to expand operations near Albany by constructing a rail-to-river unloading facility. That would allow the company to ship more oil on the Hudson River by barge to coastal refineries. Vasil stressed that Global Partners is a private operator not affiliated with the port. Another oil company, Buckeye Partners, has been using the port for almost two years to move crude by ship to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John New Brunswick. A ship has been “making an eight-day run pretty much like clockwork,” said Hendrick. At one time early in the planning, he added, there was talk of adding another ship that could double the amount of crude moved, but nothing has come from that. While not a done deal because budget negotiations are ongoing, the Port of Albany is in line for a $15 million grant from the state this year for further upgrades. The port is targeting the reconstruction of an almost-century-old wharf near Cargill’s grain elevator. It is also hoping to repave the open storage yard to better accommodate containers.