An unusual circumstance will occur this week on the 469-foot-long Atlanticborg, which arrived Sunday in Duluth to unload wind turbine components for projects in Montana and North Dakota.
Before leaving the Twin Ports, it will load 60 wind turbine blades made in North Dakota for export to Brazil.
"In order to reload you have to have perfect timing," Duluth Seaway Port Authority Executive Director Adolph Ojard said. "This could not have worked out better, for a ship unloading equipment for projects in the region to then turn around and reload with materials being manufactured in the region for export."
This will be the second shipment of blades manufactured at LM Wind Power in Grand Forks, N.D., to the CEARA II project in Brazil this year. Last month, the Alamosborg left Duluth with 60 blades. When completed, CEARA II's 141 turbine generators will produce more than 200 megawatts of energy.
"We are hoping there will be additional cargos in the future," Ojard said. "Maybe more of this (export) business will develop in 2013."
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Duluth is scheduled to handle nearly 20 energy-related cargos this year, said Jonathan Lamb, vice president and general manager at Lake Superior Warehousing Co.
With more wind energy components being made in the U.S., the port has seen fewer shipments of wind turbines components in recent years. But shipments of European components are up this year in the face of the uncertainty over the future of the federal Production Tax Credit for renewable energy facilities. The credits will expire at year's end if Congress doesn't renew them.
To take advantage of the tax credits, Minnesota Power wants to finish its Bison wind farm project in North Dakota project well ahead of schedule, by December. Four shipments of hub generators from Denmark for the Bison II and III projects are among the energy-related cargoes Lake Superior Warehousing is handling this year.
Duluth received its first shipments of turbine components in 2005. Since then, the port has handled more than 1 million freight-tons of such components. Most of the components have been inbound from European suppliers for wind farm projects as far away as Montana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Ontario.
But as illustrated by this week's shipment of blades to Brazil, not all the wind-related cargo is coming into Duluth. Turbine blades manufactured in North Dakota and trucked to Duluth have been shipped to Spain, Brazil and Chile.
"North Dakota is fortunate to have an international seaport close to our state," said Andy Peterson, president and CEO of the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce.
"The activity is really about strategic location of Duluth," Ojard said. "We have excellent truck and rail service, which allows us to reach deep into the heartland."
