Midstream Transfer to Export Salt from New Orleans to Montreal, Quebec

Domtar Industries Inc., Sifto Salt Division was a Canadian company and the locks from Lake Ontario to the St. Lawrence River were closed, from December through March,  so shipment of salt from Goderich, Ontario, on Lake Huron, was not possible.  The next choice was by ship through the Gulf of Mexico, to the Atlantic Ocean, up the east coast then into the St. Lawrence River to a dock at Montreal.

Talk to a ship broker looking for a self-unloading vessel going to New Orleans looking for a back-haul to Canada. Charter the ship and get a time and day of arrival.

Notify the Cote Blanche mine of the need to prepare for a vessel transfer requiring 23 to 25 barge loads of rock salt meeting the highway specifications.

Cote Blanche begins to stockpile the salt underground in anticipation of loading 23 to 25 barges of specification salt and orders the barges after notification of the barge line what they will be used for, a shuttle movement.

The Cote Blanche, LA mine is at milepost 129.9 on the west intracostal canal so it takes about 2 days to move barges from the mine to the Mississippi River loading site.

Contact a New Orleans stevedore and arrange for an anchorage to be available when the ship had discharged its cargo between the Head of Passes and Baton Rouge, LA. (This is the area on the lower Mississippi where the water is deep enough to accommodate an ocean going vessel to load to up to 45 feet.)
 

Ship date and coordination of barges from the mine begins. The barges are loaded and moved to a fleeting area adjacent to the ship loading site.

Meanwhile barges are already arriving at the fleeting area and will continue to be loaded and arriving even after the ship starts to load.  The last barge will be loaded at the mine while the ship is loading so that with proper coordination no demurrage will accrue because of the barges not being unloaded within the total 5 day-load-and-discharge window. Barges are shuttled from the fleeting area to and from the ship by tugs.

Ship arrives at anchorage, holds are inspected, stevedore begins moving cranes and equipment to the ship for shovel cleaning holds.

Ship is loaded making sure weight is evenly distributed so as not to break ship in half or sink the ship by loading to much in bow or stern and also loading both from starboard and port sides so as not to heave the ship over.

Complete loading, release the stevedore, inspect ship and close hatches. Work with the captain and mate to prepare for departure.

Prepare all export documents and satisfy customs requirements so ship departs on time, avoiding demurrage.