THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603160261
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: Long : 154 lines
There's a dock on the Elizabeth River's Southern Branch that helps put the stone in stone-washed blue jeans. Three or four times a year a dry-bulk ship crosses the Atlantic Ocean from France carrying several thousand tons of smooth, golf-ball-sized pebbles. The stones are headed to a West Virginia plant that will process them for use by textile plants to soften and fade denim clothing.
Last Tuesday a small Dutch bulker called the Combi Trader unloaded 3,000 tons of the stones at Elizabeth River Terminals in Chesapeake. A crane at the terminal loaded the stones directly into rail cars from the ship's hold.
Such stones, however, are hardly Elizabeth River Terminals biggest commodity: the 65-acre terminal handles thousands of tons of fertilizers, feed products, dry chemicals, salt, sand and rocks a year.
Owned by Van Ommeren N.V., the Dutch shipping giant, Elizabeth River Terminals Inc. is the port of Hampton Roads' only multi-use dry-bulk terminal.
Unlike the Norfolk Southern Pier 6 coal terminal at Lamberts Point in Norfolk, which just handles coal, or Cargill Inc.'s two terminals, which handles agricultural products such as grain, Elizabeth River Terminals will handle just about any bulk product. Anything that isn't too dusty or explosive or poisonous, that is, said Cees van de Mortel, the terminal's president and chief executive.
``They're the only game in town if you want to through-put bulk material and you don't own your own facility,'' said David F. Host, executive vice president of the ship agency T. Parker Host Inc., which represents many bulk customers.
The terminal's largest commodity is ammonium sulfate, a byproduct of nylon production that is used to make fertilizer. The material is barged from a plant in Hopewell, a city on the James River, warehoused at the terminal, then shipped overseas.
The plant, owned by Allied Signal Corp., produces up to 4,500 tons of what it calls ``co-product,'' said Randy King, the plant's traffic supervisor.
Allied Signal loads about 65 ships a year in Hopewell, but because of the James River's shallow draft, has to top off most of the vessels at Elizabeth River Terminals, King said. ``It's been a very good relationship,'' he said.
The plant sends about two ammonium sulfate-laden barges a week to the terminal, where it leases storage space for 70,000 tons of the material. Most of it is shipped to South America, King said.
Elizabeth River Terminals employs about 35 full-time people, 12 salaried and 23 hourly. At peak times there's usually a handful of temporary workers there too, van de Mortel said.
The ships themselves are worked by longshoremen from the International Longshoremen's Association, he said.
Van de Mortel declined to disclose how much is shipped through the terminal, citing competitive reasons. The terminal's bottom line has been growing 12 percent to 15 percent in each of the last three years thanks to increased efficiency and volume, he said.
``We definitely see room for more growth in line with the growth this area is experiencing,'' van de Mortel said.
The terminal intends to grow by increasing its domestic feed business, van de Mortel said. The chicken and hog farms in the Mid-Atlantic region represent a huge potential market.
It also offers value-added services for customers. The terminal blends, grinds and screens materials and unpacks bags and containers of bulk products for bulk shipping, he said.
Van Ommeren purchased the terminal in 1986 from Donald Liverman, currently an executive with Triport Terminal in Virginia Beach. The terminal was started in 1952 by a consortium of fertilizer companies.
Located on Money Point in Chesapeake, Elizabeth River Terminals also owns an adjacent 45-acre tract, which is for sale or lease.
``We're not in a hurry,'' van de Mortel said. ``We would prefer to have someone in there who would need product shipped across the terminal.''
Since van de Mortel took over the local terminal in 1993, he has overseen the building of a new 40,000-square-foot warehouse, the remodeling of another and the ongoing paving of the terminal.
``In the past, nothing used to be paved here,'' van de Mortel said. ``We're paving more and more areas every year. It helps keep everything clean. It helps with water runoff. And it keeps both the (state Department of Environmental Quality) and the customers happy.''
Several years ago the terminal installed a settlement basin so that all runoff from the terminal wouldn't be flushed directly into the river.
Stormwater accumulates in the basin, and whatever it picked up on the terminal settles to the bottom of one of a series of basins. Since then the terminal hasn't failed a water quality test, van de Mortel said.
``We have no more runoff,'' he added.
The terminal stores most of the bulk products it handles inside one of its 11 warehouses, which helps minimize air pollution caused by the wind blowing on its typically powdery cargos.
The terminal recently bought a clam-shell bucket for its crane with rubber seals and a canvas cover to help eliminate such blow off. ``It seems a little old-fashioned, but clam-shelling with a crane is a very efficient way to handle bulk product,'' van de Mortel said.
Only salt and a type of gypsum used by the peanut industry to harden peanut shells are stored outside in huge piles.
Inside its warehouses are West African ore used to make batteries, boron from Turkey used in the manufacture of fiberglass and potash from Russia used by the fertilizer industry.
Harmony Products Inc. leases one warehouse on the terminal where its employees manufacture, bag and ship the Chesapeake-based company's environmentally friendly fertilizers.
The terminal handles on average about three ships a month and two barges a week. Business peaks in winter as the fertilizer industry gears up for the spring season, van de Mortel said.
Most of what the terminal handles is shipped within about 200 miles of the port. That's a relatively short distance because bulk products are very expensive to ship inland via truck or rail. The terminal's competitors include similar bulk terminals in Baltimore and Wilmington, N.C.
Located in the heart of one of the East Coast's fastest growing ports, Elizabeth River Terminals future seems bright.
It sits on a 35-foot deep channel that could be deepened soon, which would allow larger ships to call at its piers. It has ready access to the interstates and is served by two railroads, Norfolk Southern Corp. and CSX Transportation Inc.
``It's really not a terminal suited for other cargos besides dry-bulk,'' van de Mortel said. ``We really see that dry-bulk is our niche.'' MEMO: [For a related story, a profile of Cees van de Mortel, see page 13 of
BUSINESS WEEKLY for this date.]
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
BULK TRADE
Cees van de Mortel
VP map
[Color Photos]
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
POTASH
Inside Elizabeth River Terminals' warehouses are West African ore,
boron from Turkey and Russian potash, left, that is used by the
fertilizer industry. Harmony Products Inc. leases a warehouse on the
terminal where its employees manufacture, bag and ship
environmentally friendly fertilzers.
SALT
The terminal stores most of its bulk products inside one of its 11
warehouses, which helps minimize air pollution. Only salt, left, and
a type of gypsum used by the peanut industry to harden peanut shells
are stored outside in huge piles.
ROCKS
Three or four times a year a dry-bulk ship crosses the Atlantic
Ocean from France carrying several thousand tons of smooth,
golf-ball-sized pebbles. The stones are headed to a West Virginia
plant that will process them for use by textile plants to soften and
fade denim clothing.
by CNB