Canadian National palns sale f Great Lakes fleett.

[guest]

yes, and when they twin the ambassador bridge all the steel has been bought in germany and is sitting there, thats the ambassador not the gordie howe bridge

[up north george]

with talk about 1,000 footers going for scrap/andor no available cargoes available is that new lock at the soo really necessary? as for a canadian company buying glf cargoes are just as scarce in canada. not a good time for great lakes shipping.

I believe the shipping industry is going to stay strong for a while. With money starting to get dispersed and projects now becoming fully funded because of the infrastructure bill. To build bridges and roads steel and structures are going to be busy. Gary just announced another 60 million going into the plants down there.

[Denny]

I would say IMO anyway that Yes the new Soo Lock at the Soo is indeed necessary to build. Yeah ok so as a Guest mentioned about maybe a few of the footers someday going for scrap and the possibility of less and fewer cargoes as well to add. If you look at it this way, the vast majority of traffic at the Soo now uses the Poe Lock. If the Poe went down for any long length of time the only operational lock right now would be the Mac Lock and that can only handle ships up to 78 feet wide. Yeah I know too that they could make exceptions as far as ships with 78 foot beams to use the Mac if they had to. Also, the could shut down the Poe Lock for any type of maintenance work and continue to keep using the new Poe size lock then thus it would not effect traffic too much then. Also, when the new Poe is built and finished then if there's a large backup of traffic waiting to use the old Poe Lock then anything that can't use the Mac due to its size could then use the new Poe Lock without having to wait its turn then to use the locks. Hope I'm making sense with all of this. This is my thoughts only on this subject and topic though and nothing more than that!

[guest]

with talk about 1,000 footers going for scrap/andor no available cargoes available is that new lock at the soo really necessary? as for a canadian company buying glf cargoes are just as scarce in canada. not a good time for great lakes shipping.

[Guest]

Wonder if a Canadian company would buy the fleet to get their hands on some well maintained thousand footers and smaller boats?

Looking at future shutdowns of St Clair/Belle River coal power plants, there may be a few too many 1,000 footers for the remaining steel mills.

With inflation running high, the cost of new builds in China must be going up. GLF could be a bargain.

[Andrew]

I'm betting the operator is trying to purchase the fleet and might need another year or two to get the amount of capital they need. Also, since we may be entering wartime, iron prices will shoot, so could bode well short term for the great lakes fleet.

[RCRVRP]

Canadian National Railway plans sale of Great Lakes Fleet of ore carriers

By Mark Reilly – Managing Editor, Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
Feb 28, 2022, 7:42am EST
The Canadian owner of the Great Lakes Fleet — the big ore-carrying ships that go to and from Duluth and Twin Ports on Lake Superior — is putting the vessels up for sale.

The News Tribune reports on the plan from Canadian National Railway executives, who had said during an earnings call in January that they planned to sell the nine-ship fleet.

"A potential vessel sale process is progressing with some active bidders," said Helen Quirke, CN's chief strategy officer, though she added that a deal may yet not come together.

The bidders weren't identified.

The Great Lakes Fleet, which includes three 1,000-foot ships, is based in Duluth, though the ships rarely stay long and none remained in Duluth over the winter. Local officials said they hope the eventual buyer keeps the base in Duluth.