First boat arrives at Calcite as shipping season begins
THE BARGE GREAT LAKES TRADER pushed by articulated tugboat Joyce L.Van Enkevort, the 16th largest carrier on the Great Lakes, was the first boat into the Port of Calcite last Friday afternoon. (Photo courtesy of Carmeuse Americas)
by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor
It was smooth start to the start of the boating season at the Port of Calcite with work crews from Carmeuse Americas (CA) loading the first shopment of the 2024 season during the Easter weekend.
The Great Lakes Trader, the 740-foot barge entering its 24th season, pushed by the articulated tugboat Joyne L. VanEnkervort was the first boat to be load in Rogers City.
According to site operations manager Scott Grulke, the boat was loaded with 33,750 tons of rotary E1 & E2 for the kilns at Graymont Wi inc. in Superior, Wisconsin.
The Rogers City workers started to load it at 4 in the afternoon and were done at 10:30 a.m. the next morning.
“It went smooth,” said Grulke. “Once we started loading, we never went down once, other than the shift change.” CA is running three shifts around the clock.
The second boat was the Calumet Monday, followed by the third boat, John J. Boland.
In 2023, crews mined about 9 million tons, while loading and shipping out just over 8 million tons on 323 boats. The last boat of th
Grulke said there was 600,000 tons available on the stock piles to ship out right away in the spring for a few customers, who encountered various problems and could not get the stone loaded.
“We were up a little bit in 2023 from where we ended in 2022, where we were at 7.8, 7.9 million,” said Grulke. “The year before, it was right around the same mark.”
He said 2024 is forecasting to be even better.
“It’s looking like it could be between 8.2 to 8.5 million shipped,” he said.
