Jaxport’s Talleyrand terminal receives massive aluminum shipment

At the Port of Jacksonville’s Talleyrand terminal, workers from Seaonus unloaded a ship Tuesday filled with 11,000 tons of aluminum ingots.

The cargo came from South America and is headed to smelting plants in St. Augustine and the Port Manatee area, near Tampa.

It’s a big shipment, said Rick Sharp vice president of business development and customer relations for Seaonus, a terminal and freight services company.

“We haven’t had an aluminum vessel in Jacksonville for five or six years,” he said. “And the shipments we received prior to that were in the 3,000- to 5,000-ton range.”

The ship’s arrival reflects lower aluminum prices and a recovering economy, Sharp said. It also highlights Jaxport’s competitiveness as a port for break bulk.

Break bulk shipment means the product is transported as unit loads, for example on pallets, rather than inside of cargo containers.

Sharp said companies ship aluminum both ways, as break bulk or in shipping containers, typically depending on the size of the shipment.

“When you’re dealing with the smaller quantities, a lot of times containers make more sense, because you’re only buying several hundred tons,” he said. “You can’t put that on a ship as break bulk, it really doesn’t make any sense.”

In recent years, when finances were tighter, companies were transporting aluminum at a rate of about 1,000 tons per shipment, Sharp said, so that meant using containers. It also meant Jaxport split the demand for shipping with ports like Charleston or Savannah. Not so with break bulk.