24 American Journal of Transportation American Journal of Transportation ajot.com Built on Partnership. Powered by Baltimore. The Steamship Trade Association brings together the carriers, terminals, and operators who keep the Port of Baltimore moving. Because a connected industry is a stronger industry. sta-balto.com than having to dispatch an empty [truck] over to the Eastern Shore where the pri- mary crops are at and bring it back.” Instead “the farm trucks can come out of the field to right here [transload facil- ity]. We can transload that box and keep less trucks on the road and manage it in a more efficient way for the shipper.” And by transloading containers directly at the port, as opposed to an offsite container loading facility that requires an additional truck transfer, the new export transloading facility will take significant truck miles off the road, reduc- ing costs and simplifying the supply chain for local farmers. The New Facility’s Potential When completed the new facility will operate a full-service grain elevator with the capacity to load more than 200 containers per week. It will feature three storage 20,000 tanks with a combined capacity of 60,000 bushels. The annual export capacity of the facility is listed at 275,000 metric tons. It is anticipated that the exports are destined for Asian mar- kets, especially China. With construction now underway, the grain export facility is expected “to go live on September 1st” according to Schmidt. The basic system is that the trucks loaded with grain are unloaded into stor- age silos which in turn unloads the grain fill into empty containers. The loaded containers are processed and then trucked and processed in the adjacent container terminal for loading on vessels. Schmidt is expecting a “slow ramp up” in the fall and is looking at a 10,000 TEUs to 20,000 TEUs of export boxes. Since the port has far more containers coming inbound than outbound, there is always an issue for ocean carriers to reposition their empties back to heavy side of the haul. And having grain shipments as a match back loaded box is attractive to the ocean carriers in their rebalancing efforts. In addition to transloading via trucks, the export facility will also be able to handle rail cars. The facility has short line rail connection to both the CSX and NS rail networks, and this will provide access for grain producers and processors from the Midwest. Adamchak noted the importance of the rail connection in his remarks at the ground- breaking, saying “It’s also a natural next step for Frey as we [connect] producers and pro- cessors across North America with global markets, and it unlocks meaningful new export opportunities for feed-product pro- ducers in the Midwest through the facility’s direct-from-rail capabilities.” Frey partners with Ports America Chesapeake to establish new agricultural export facility. (NOVEL – continued on page 43) (NOVEL – continued from page 20)
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