b'6American Journal of Transportation ajot.comDow explores sale of its ports, storage and rail businessesDow Inc. is exploring the sale of its portsity, as well as 11 marine docks, according to on the U.S. Gulf Coast and six railway hubs asone of the people. The terminalsincluding it refocuses on chemicals, according to peopleones in Freeport, Texas, and St. Charles and with knowledge of the matter. PlaquemineinLouisianaarelocatednear The company has tapped a financial adviserrailway lines operated by Union Pacific Corp. tosolicitprospectivesuitors,saidoneoftheOpen land and unused tank capacity may also people, who requested anonymity because thebe included in a transaction, the person said.talks are private. A representative for Midland,More than 70% of Mars revenue last year Michigan-based Dow declined comment. came from Dow, and the company would seek Thepotentialdivestituresechomovesa 25-year contract with the buyer for marine across the industry to focus on manufacturingand terminal services, one of the people said. chemicals efficiently while hiving off respon- Thebusinessalsohasthird-partycustom-sibility for running the ground infrastructure,ers, most which have a minimum of 15 years Multipurpose and heavyliftfrom power supplies to transportation. Mac- remaining on their leases.quarie Infrastructure & Real Assets last yearForthepotentialraildivestiture,Dow shipping to stagnate onpaidBayer AGandLanxess AGmorethanwantsasimilarlong-termpartnerforinfra-$3.5 billion to take over their chemical parkstructure critical to its manufacturing opera-coronavirus impacts operations,gainingasteadyincomefromtionsatsixsitesinNorth America,another long-termserviceandsupplycontractswithperson briefed on the matter said. The plants Drewryslatestforecastcase that once the switch hasthe companies on site. in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana; for multipurpose and heavy- been made to containerisation,Dowsmarineandstorageoperations,in Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas; and in lift(MPV/HL)shippingshippersandreceiversareknown as its Mars unit, includes 136 chemi- Alberta,Canada,atCalgaryandEdmonton, confirms that if the corona- (STAGNATEcontinued oncalandliquidhyrdocarbontankswith200represent the bulk of Dows olefins and poly-virus(COVID-19)outbreakpage 7) million gallons (760 million liters) of capac- (EXPLOREScontinued on page 7)iscontainedby4Q20,the expected demand growth for breakbulk and project cargo will stay positive but remain very weak. thereareaOURHowever, number of caveats to this out-lookandinitslatestMulti-purpose Shipping ForecasterCONNECTIONSreport, Drewry presents three differentscenarios,depend-ing on how the virus outbreak andtheglobaleconomyRUN DEEPdevelopsover2Q20.These range from the fairly benign bestcase,wheretheglobal economypicksupin2H20 and with it dry cargo demand, to a negative scenario wherePort of New Orleans is a modern Gateway connecting COVID-19isnotcontainedinland U.S. and Canada to global markets. Our over 2020, leading to a globalunique geographical location, unparalleled inland recession. The base case sce-nario is seen as most likely. connections and multimodal capabilities deliver B ase - CaseF oreCast integrated and seamless logistics solutions Drewrysbasecasesce- between river, rail and road.nariostartswiththecaveat that a global economic recov-ery will not begin until 4Q20.Twice-weekly Container-on-Barge service.Anyrecoverythathad beenanticipatedfor2Q20Alignment with New Orleans Public and3Q20isnowexpected to be delayed as some of theBelt Railroad, connecting us to six Class I pent-updemandwillhaverailroads.vanished due to both the lon-gevityofthecrisisandtheClarence Henry Truckway, a dedicated oilmarketcrash.Thetworoadway on Port property, makes fast events(COVID-19plusthe priceofcrudeoildroppingtransit times even faster.below $30/bbl) have resulted inpredictionsofwidescale unemployment and company bankruptcies,whichwhen occurringtogetherreduce investmentandthecollec-tive purchasing power of the worlds population.Theotherkeydriverfor the MPV/HL sector is the com-petition effect and the contin- Learn more at portnola.com.ued encroachment by container and bulk carriers into the break-bulk and project cargo space. DrewryexpectsaU-shaped recovery in container demand over 2021 under our base-case scenario.However,thiswill betemperedwithcontinued oversupply issues in this sector, resulting in little weakening of the market share taken by the containerlines.Itisalsothe'