Searsport Activity

I keep seeing on Facebook a CP posting about Searsport and what it offers to shippers. Has anyone heard of any new activites planned for this operation?

Mostly Potash traffic for export to Brazil from what I've heard.

Searsport received a shipment of bundled Plastic from Ireland that was sent to a waste to energy installation in Orrington. Unfortuantely, some of the bundles were damaged in shipment and when being lifted from the ship to a trailer that was to do the transport some of the bundles broke open. Some of the plastic fell into the water and have now ben found on Sears Island. Clean up has started, but this is not good news if they want to transload any other products(ie, Potash Ash). The Searport NIMBYs now have something to complain about. Good Luck CP on any products that they will want to transload at Searport.

I mean, not sure if you saw the pics, but I’d be pretty pissed if literally a few thousand pounds of pulverized plastic (let’s call it what it is) garbage washed up on the nearby beaches that people volunteer their time to keep clean. Pretty sure too that the business CP would be interested in isn’t shipping trash plastic... but potash and grains, and or other bulk materials such as wood pulp and metals. Besides, this is all on Sprague not CP

Thank you for pointing that out. This incident wasn't the railroad's fault.

The point of my posting was not to blame CP, but to show what the Searsport NIMBYs will use to block any development of what Searsport has to offer. I look forward to seeing what CP can do to expand the potential of the facilities at Searsport and am pleased to see that the Orrington facility had the fore thought to try something different to keep their operation going. This incident just shows that with progress comes learning.

I disagree and wouldn’t associate this issue with NIMBYism or CPs growth pipeline here. Sprague should have the hammer dropped on them, you expect to be a world class port operator and you just got caught dump pulverized plastic junk into the ocean, didn’t report it to anyone, and when it started washing up on nearby beaches make a story where there was nothing they could do and they barely tried with divers to find the junk. Overall however, the article seems a bit more focused on not just the act but also the commodity of junk plastic , for $77/ton that’s a, no pun intended, garbage price for that too. Just think it had to come all the way from Ireland just to be burned....I don’t think any of that would peak CPs interest

Couldn't agree more. Garbage, junk and recyclables are sent to Third World countries. The Sprague operation sounds pretty sketchy - I'm pretty sure that's not the kind of traffic CP had in mind for Searsport.

Rails and ports has a piece out, citing Keith Creel as the source at some Q&A, stating— and I paraphrase since I guess I used up my free access— that so far searsport has not yet met expectations. But they are still working on it and looking for opportunities

Interesting article in Bangor Daily News about crew members of foreign vessels getting COVID vaccine shots while docked at Searsport. It states that 4 ships unloaded various materials during their stops this past week. Mentioned were windmill blades, petroleum products and products for cement making. Do we know if any of these will be or were shipped out by rail?

Just casually checking the MarineTraffic app I've noticed an uptick in calls at Searsport over the past month.

The blades would almost certainly go by rail if they were bound for points beyond Maine. Aside from that, I don't know if CP has attracted any other new long-term shipping to Searsport.

Has the dream of Potash export died? That prospect always seemed dubious to me, since CP has done all of their export Potash loading in Thunder Bay for many years without much issue. The only obvious advantage of Searsport over Thunder Bay is it's ability to handle ships larger than Seawaymax.

There have not been many ship calls in searsport in recent weeks.

Tidbit from the CPKC Merger filing with the STB:

EXHIBIT 14 [APP VOL. 2, PAGE 462]: TRAFFIC DENSITY
CPR Year 2020
Average Tons per Mile of Road (000)

CPR BANGOR SEARSPORT,ME - BROWNVILLE JCT,ME MPs: 0.7-75.1
West/North Gross Tons (000): 471
East/South Gross Tons (000): 236
Total Gross Tons (000): 707

The total gross tons on this branch is expected to grow by 3X to 2,059 in year 3 after CPKC merger (not clear the growth has anything to due with the merger though...) Taken from EXHIBIT 14: TRAFFIC DENSITY
CPR Growth Plan Year 3 APP VOL. 2, PAGE 486.

Maine DOT is in discussion with Searsport authorities about the potentional to make Searsport the hub of a proposed off-shore wind project. This project is only an experimental and will be located if approved on Federal owned waters. It could included some of Sear Island being used besides the existing port facilities.

I can't read between the lines on this CP-Canpotex press release re: the renewal of their partnership - might this have any bearing on CP shipping potash to an east coast port via ex-CMQ? FWIW, the CP release implies it transports more Canpotex product than does CN:

CP is the primary rail transportation provider supporting delivery of Canadian potash to Canpotex’s overseas export markets.

and

As the leading carrier for export potash, CP allows Canpotex’s supply chain to be optimized efficiently and safely from mine to port terminals by leveraging CP’s service options and network capacity.

https://www.cpr.ca/en/media/cp-and-canp ... pply-chain