Iron ore pellets have long been a mainstay of Twin Ports docks. But soon, a new cargo — unprocessed taconite ore — could be loaded onto downbound vessels.
 

The Pere Marquette 41 is due to load 5,000 tons of taconite at Hallett Dock Thursday. Under the power of the tug Undaunted, the barge will then proceed to Chicago.

The aggregate will be used for road construction in the Chicago area, replacing softer limestone-based rock usually used there. The taconite aggregate can be used to produce a more durable road surface with superior traction qualities, according to research tests performed at the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute.

Eventually, this could represent a new market for millions of tons of taconite rock readily available on the Iron Range. And that rock could flow through the Twin Ports, creating more work for dockhands and crews.
 

Iron ore pellets have long been a mainstay of Twin Ports docks. But soon, a new cargo — unprocessed taconite ore — could be loaded onto downbound vessels.
 

The Pere Marquette 41 is due to load 5,000 tons of taconite at Hallett Dock Thursday. Under the power of the tug Undaunted, the barge will then proceed to Chicago.

The aggregate will be used for road construction in the Chicago area, replacing softer limestone-based rock usually used there. The taconite aggregate can be used to produce a more durable road surface with superior traction qualities, according to research tests performed at the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute.

Eventually, this could represent a new market for millions of tons of taconite rock readily available on the Iron Range. And that rock could flow through the Twin Ports, creating more work for dockhands and crews.
 

Ron Stone, who left the Twin Ports radio market last week, has landed in the Twin Cities radio market this week.

Stone, the former general manager for Midwest Communications in Duluth, will become the general manager of Salem Communications in the Minneapolis suburb of Eagan, according to a news release. Stone said the decision was made to be closer to his family in the Twin Cities area.

Stone was involved in the controversial decision to let go of long-time radio personality Lew Latto as well as Rhonda Grussendorf and Bruce Ciskie. He said his career change had nothing to do with staffing changes at WDSM 710-AM and KDAL 610-AM. Latto has since been hired back.

Salem Communications in Eagan runs KKMS 980-AM, KYCR 1570-AM and WWTC 1280-AM.

University of Minnesota Duluth football players are used to bucking the status quo.

On the field, the Bulldogs defied the athletic odds en route to a 15-0 season and a NCAA Division II national championship last fall. Off the field, an overwhelming majority of upperclassmen have defied the economic odds to find jobs for this summer.

After a two-month job search, about 60 of the 70 student athletes who will remain in Duluth to train for next season have found part-time and full-time jobs, assistant coach Nick Goeser said.

“Obviously the economy has made it a heck of a lot tougher, but our guys have been aggressive to do whatever to find a job,” Goeser said.

The players will work in an assortment of jobs such as gas station attendants, landscaping and assisting in a drug rehabilitation center, Goeser said.

A Texas Roadhouse restaurant — which serves a dinner-only menu of steaks, ribs, chicken and salads — is planning to open in January near Miller Hill Mall in Duluth.

The 250-seat restaurant and small bar will set up a new shop south of the Home Depot and the Olive Garden on Mall Drive. The restaurant will hire about 80 employees, with 40 percent of them full-time.

Each restaurant features a butcher to provide fresh cuts of meat, fresh bread and sides made from scratch, said spokesman Travis Doster. The most popular item is a six-ounce steak with the choice of two sides and a drink for about $14, Doster said.

Texas Roadhouse, which began in 1993, has 325 restaurants in 46 states, including 10 in Wisconsin and one in Minnesota in the Minneapolis suburb of Coon Rapids.

“We looked at other cities in Minnesota, but we thought Duluth was a good fit,” Doster said.
 

The current slowdown in Twin Ports shipping pales in comparison to the near shutdown in Southeast Asia.

Here is a story from Tuesday’s New York Times:

SINGAPORE — To go out in a small boat along Singapore’s coast now is to feel like a mouse tiptoeing through an endless herd of slumbering elephants.

Empty ships near Singapore harbor on Tuesday. Little rebound is expected soon in the global export business despite hints of economic recovery in the United States.

One of the largest fleets of ships ever gathered idles here just outside one of the world’s busiest ports, marooned by the re-ceding tide of global trade. There may be tentative signs of economic recovery in spots around the globe, but few here.

Hundreds of cargo ships — some up to 300,000 tons, with many weighing more than the entire 130-ship Spanish Armada — seem to perch on top of the water rather than in it, their red rudders and bulbous noses, submerged when the vessels are loaded, sticking a dozen feet out of the water.

So many ships have congregated here — 735, according to AIS Live ship tracking service of Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay in Redhill, Britain — that shipping lines are becoming concerned about near misses and collisions in one of the world’s most congested waterways, the straits that separate Malaysia and Singapore from Indonesia.

The root of the problem lies in an unusually steep slump in global trade, confirmed by trade statistics announced on Tuesday.

China said that its exports nose-dived 22.6 percent in April from a year earlier, while the Philippines said that its exports in March were down 30.9 percent from a year earlier. The United States announced on Tuesday that its exports had declined 2.4 percent in March.

“The March 2009 trade data reiterates the current challenges in our global economy,” said Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative.

More worrisome, despite some positive signs like a Wall Street rally and slower job losses in the United States, is that the current level of trade does not suggest a recovery soon, many in the shipping business say.

“A lot of the orders for the retail season are being placed now, and compared to recent years, they are weak,” said Chris Woodward, the vice president for container services at Ryder System , the big logistics company.

Western consumers still adjusting to losses in value of their stocks and homes are in little mood to start spending again on nonessential imports, said Joshua Felman, the assistant director of the Asia and Pacific division of the International Monetary Fund. “For trade to pick up, demand has to pick up,” he said. “It’s very difficult to see that happening any time soon.”

So badly battered is the shipping industry that the daily rate to charter a large bulk freighter suitable for carrying, say, iron ore, plummeted from close to $300,000 last summer to a low of $10,000 early this year, according to H. Clarkson & Com-pany, a London ship brokerage.

The rate has rebounded to nearly $25,000 in the last several weeks, and some bulk carriers have left Singapore. But ship owners say this recovery may be short-lived because it mostly reflects a rush by Chinese steel makers to import iron ore before a possible price increase next month.

Container shipping is also showing faint signs of revival, but remains deeply depressed. And more empty tankers are showing up here.

The cost of shipping a 40-foot steel container full of merchandise from southern China to northern Europe tumbled from $1,400 plus fuel charges a year ago to as little as $150 early this year, before rebounding to around $300, which is still below the cost of providing the service, said Neil Dekker, a container industry forecaster at Drewry Shipping Consultants in Lon-don.

Eight small companies in the industry have gone bankrupt in the last year and at least one of the major carriers is likely to fail this year, he said.

Vessels have flocked to Singapore because it has few storms, excellent ship repair teams, cheap fuel from its own refinery and, most important, proximity to Asian ports that might eventually have cargo to ship.

The gathering of so many freighters “is extraordinary,” said Christopher Pålsson, a senior consultant at Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay Research, the consulting division of Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay. “We have probably not witnessed anything like this since the early 1980s,” during the last big bust in the global shipping industry.

The world’s fleet has nearly doubled since the early 1980s, so the tonnage of vessels in and around Singapore’s waters this spring may be the highest ever, he said, cautioning that detailed worldwide ship tracking data has been available only for the last five years.

These vessels total more than 41 million tons, according to the AIS Live tracking service. That is nearly equal to the en-tire world’s merchant fleet at the end of World War I, and represents almost 4 percent of the world’s fleet today.

The third anniversary for W-Trek Outfitters in downtown Duluth will not be a happy occassion.

The outdoors gear store at 230 E. Superior St. will close its doors by the end of May, the same month it opened in 2006.

"We’ve seen a steady decline in sales since September," said store owner Nodin Morgenstern. "People have not come in since the economy situation started. It has been pretty palpable."

Morgenstern said gross sales reached about $220,000 in both 2007 and 2008, but the sales figures to date in 2009 were about $10,000 less and forced the store’s closure.

The ownership of Wintergreen Northern Wear in Ely has switched hands.

Susan and Paul Schurke, who have owned the clothing outfitter since its inception in 1987, have passed it onto Curt and Becky Stacey.

The Staceys said they have no plans to change Wintergreen’s operations.

“Production will stay right here on Sheridan Street while we expand such areas as Internet marketing and group sales,” Curt Stacey said in an e-mail.

Susan Schurke will continue in a part-time role as head product designer and assistant in production of the catalog.

“No major staffing changes are planned,” Becky Stacey said of Wintergreen’s more than 25 employees. “But we do hope to add new staff as production grows.”

The Staceys, with two daughters, have recently moved from Michigan.

This just in — courtesy of Forum Communication’s state capitol reporter Scott Wente…

The Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce does not like Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposal to cut health-care provider funding $764 million in the next two years.

"While the chamber’s leadership understands the need to reduce the state’s expenditures, we are, nevertheless, gravely concerned with the detrimental impact your proposed funding cuts would have on our local health care providers and our local economy," chamber President David Ross wrote to Pawlenty.

The letter is notable because Pawlenty normally is a Chamber of Commerce favorite, with chambers around the state being his most-visited organizations.

Ross said the Duluth group is upset with the Pawlenty plan because the industry is the area’s largest economic engine and largest employer.

"This combined $38.2 million reduction in revenue would result in the elimination of jobs and health care services offered within our beloved community," Ross wrote. "In addition, our local health care providers would be forced to pass along costs to those with insurance, since it appears mandates to offer health care for those without insurance would still be in place."

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FYI: St. Lukes anticipates it would see annual medical reimbursements fall by about $12 million under the governor’s plan, and SMDC Health System predicts it could lose $26 million. 

It should be noted that while Gov. Pawlenty has proposed certain cuts, the package that emerges from the state legislature will likely be less aggressive.