Northwest Upgrading Inc. utilized the Port of Duluth and the services of its stevedore, Lake Superior Warehousing Co., Inc. (LSWCI) to discharge twelve pressure vessels, each weighing up to 1 million pounds, in November 2008. According to Brian Cook, NWU Vice President of Supply Chain Management, along with related support activities, the vessels were successfully and seamlessly transferred from ship to shore-side long-term storage. Cook states, “Lake Superior Warehousing’s performance and support is outstanding, and we recently presented the company with our ‘Vendor Excellence Award’, an award received by only 1% of our suppliers.”

While no heavy lift project is like another, components are typically discharged directly from vessel to outbound mode of transportation. Northwest Upgrading’s project, with plans to discharge to long-term storage, required thinking out-of- the-box from a logistical and stevedoring perspective. After discharge from vessel, components were transported via an 80-wheel transporter to a Foreign Trade Zone laydown yard where assembled timber mats produced an engineered solution for storage of the 1 million pound components. In addition to the long term storage, LSWCI has been tasked with continued monitoring of each vessel, performing monthly inspections according to the manufacturer’s specifications.

In honor of its eighteen year history, LSWCI continues to provide superior logistical solutions for projects of all sizes, from warehousing to stevedoring, meeting the demands of each customer’s individual requirements.