Steel Demand Pushes Seaway, Lakes Traffic

Rebounding demand for steel and the iron ore to make it is causing an 18 percent increase in St. Lawrence Seaway traffic for the first two months of this season and huge increases in shipments on the Great Lakes from U.S. Midwest and Northern Quebec iron mines.

Total cargo shipments from season-opening March 25 to May 31 came to 6,888,000 metric tons on the St. Lawrence Seaway, compared with 5,840,000 tons in the period last year, Canada’s Seaway administration reported Monday.

Iron ore shipments doubled to 2.4 million metric tons from 1.2 million in the year-ago period. There were 33,000 tons of steel slabs carried, standing out starkly from none carried year-to-date 2009. "Iron ore volume is 105 percent above the same period last year, and our steel slab imports into Hamilton (Ontario) have rebounded," said Bruce Hodgson, market development director for Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp.

The SLSMC quoted Michael Kennedy, a senior manager for steel company ArcelorMittalDofasco at Hamilton as saying the iron ore and steel traffic reflects "the improved capacity utilization from all of the steel mills" along the Great Lakes basin. Kennedy added that, while "the economy is trending in the right direction, the industry has not yet returned to pre-recession production levels."

Meanwhile, the Cleveland-based Lake Carriers’ Association reports iron ore shipments on the Great Lakes, at 6.3 million net tons in May, were up 16.4 percent over April and up 106 percent from May a year ago.

May loadings at U.S. ports were up 118 percent compared with May last year, to 5.5 million metric tons from 2.6 million in May, 2009. Shipments from Canadian ports were up 38 percent to 666,424 tons from 481,716. Lakes ore trade year-to-date was 15.8 million metric tons, up 140 percent from the period last year and very near the five-year average for the period.