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30 THE JOURNAL OF COMMERCE www.joc.com APRIL 2017 BRIEFS n MILWAUKEE HEAVY-LIFT CRANE READY FOR LAKES SEASON The Port of Milwaukee hopes to use a new Manitowoc crawler crane with capac- ity of 272 metric tons to attract additional heavy-lift and project shipments through the US Great Lakes port. The crane made its first lift before the Lakes shipping season began its annual three-month winter shutdown in December. The crane lifted part of a large Caterpillar mining shovel that was placed into winter storage at the port for shipment after the St. Lawrence Sea- way reopens. The shovel's mainframe component weighed more than 90 metric tons. Mining equipment is an important breakbulk cargo at Milwaukee. Caterpillar and Joy Global have heavy-equipment manufacturing plants in the area and have used the port for their shipments. The port has a dock dedicated to heavy lifts. Shipment of mining equipment is a cyclical business that has been slow lately, reflecting the downturn in the mining industry, port spokesman Jeff Fleming said. He said the new crane will be used for other cargoes such as steel, which has had healthy volume lately. "The new crane will add flexibility to our handling of heavy lifts," he said. F lem i ng sa id M i lwau kee's st eel imports have been balanced by bulk grain exports that provide backhauls for mul- tipurpose ships. "With the strong dollar, agricultural shipments have faced chal- lenges in the market, but carriers are able to pair inbound steel with outbound ag shipments," he said. n SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE SHIP NEARS COMPLETION THE FIRST OF four semi-submersible deck cargo voyages ordered by Greenland Heav yl i f t Hold i ngs of Si ngapore is nearing completion at the CSBC shipyard in Taiwan. The 64,000-deadweight-ton GPO Grace is designed for transportation of offshore drill rigs, platforms, modules, and other heavy equipment. Its first voyage will be to carry a platform support frame from Thailand to Norway. The GPO Grace is scheduled for delivery in May, and will be followed later this year by a sister vessel. The third and fourth ships in the series are due in 2019. Oslo-based GPO Heavylift will handle the vessels' commercial management. With its bridge and superstructure located forward, the GPO Grace has a free deck area extending for 183 meters of the ship's 225-meter length and spanning its entire 48-meter breadth. The vessel will submerge to a maxi- mum depth of 15 meters to allow the float-on and float-off of cargo such as jackup rigs, semi-submersible drilling platforms, modules for oil and gas proj - ects, dredgers, and pontoon-mounted structures and equipment. n GHENT, ROTTERDAM ADD BREAKBULK SERVICES TWO NEW BREAKBULK services have been announced at Rotterdam and at Belgium's Port of Ghent. Hong Kong-based Pacific Basin Ship- ping said Rotterdam will be the main discharge port for a regular breakbulk/ bulk service to and from the Far East. Pacific Basin has increased its charter voyages for Asian-sourced steel products to a regular biweekly service. Cargoes delivered to Rotterdam so far include lots of 10,000 to 18,000 metric tons of steel products handled at terminals of Broekman and JC Meijers. Kalmar Express will provide sailings every four to five weeks between Ghent and Kalmar, Sweden, with wayport calls offered on inducement, using chartered multipurpose ships with combined lifting capacities of 60 to 160 metric tons. The Kalmar service is being launched by Belgian shipping agent Lalemant Group and its partner, French African Maritime Agencies Guinea. The main loading ter- minal at Ghent for the service will be Stukwerkers. n BARNHART TO MOVE NASA COMPONENTS HEAVY-LIFT SPECIALIST BARNHART Crane & Rigging has been chosen by the US National Aeronautics and Space Adminis- tration to transport a mockup of the core stage of NASA's space launch system, the agency's rocket for deep space missions. Memphis-based Barnhart will deliver the components by barge from the final assembly point at the G&G Steel plant in Cordova, Alabama, to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility at New Orleans. The mockup will weigh 104 metric tons (114 tons) and measure 64 meters (210 feet) long. An overhead crane will be used at G&G to load the core stage onto a 61-meter Barnhart deck barge and 76-meter canal deck barge. At Michoud, the mock-up will be offloaded onto Goldhofer transporters. The inaugural f light of the space launch system is expected in late 2018 from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. l