Around 11,000 tons of hot-rolled steel coils from Mittal Steel’s East Chicago facility set sail last night for Pasajes, Spain aboard the Julietta, the first export shipment of steel through the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor since 2005.

According to a statement released on Monday by the Port of Indiana, there were only a few export steel shipments between 2003 and 2005, just over 55,000 tons total. In 1995, in contrast, the port handled an all-time high of 243,000 tons of exported steel.

“Historically, the majority of steel moving through the port is imported from European countries,” noted Ian Hirt, general manager of Federal Marine Terminals, the port’s general cargo stevedore. “But changing market conditions and a weak U.S. dollar can trigger export opportunities. There is a possibility for more export shipments this year.”

Since the Port of Indiana has year-round access to the inland river system, the statement said, it does ship some steel by barge which can eventually be exported to world markets after being transloaded to ocean-going vessels in or around New Orleans.

The Port of Indiana generally handles more ocean-going cargo than any other U.S. Great Lakes port and about 15 percent of all U.S. steel trade with Europe, the statement added. In 2006, the port set a new record with $584 million in steel shipments, up 57 percent from 2005. Sharing boundaries with two of the largest steel mills in the country, the port handles a wide range of steel-related cargoes.

All three of Indiana’s ports on Lake Michigan and the Ohio River set individual records for total shipments in 2006:

•Mount Vernon, $482 million, up 20 percent.

•Jeffersonville, $588 million, up 30 percent.

•Burns Harbor/Portage, $820 million, up 21 percent.

Overall, the statement said, the Ports of Indiana set a new record of $1.89 billion of cargo handled in 2006, representing a 23 percent increase over 2005, which itself had been the previous 36-year high.

Posted 6/12/2007