THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9603300299
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
Lambert's Point Docks Inc. has gotten off to a rough start this year.
The small Norfolk cargo terminal has lost three shipping lines in the past three months, slashing its cargo tonnage and the hours it provides to laborers from the International Longshoremen's Association.
In the first two months of the year, the terminal has seen the cargo shipped across its docks plummet 83 percent, said John D. Covaney, the Virginia Port Authority's senior managing director of marketing services.
Much of that cargo, mostly rubber shipments, has shifted to the port authority's terminals. Shipments of break-bulk cargo through the terminals owned by the Virginia Port Authority are up 35.6 percent so far this year to 99,000 tons.
Compounding Lambert's Point's woes is the loss last June of its largest shipping line to a terminal in Wilmington, N.C., which had less expensive labor. The line, Waterman Steamship Corp., had carried several hundred thousand tons of rubber to the terminal from Indonesia each year.
If nothing changes, Lambert's Point Docks estimates its cargo tonnage will fall to 130,000 tons in 1996, said H.R. ``Bob'' Jones, the terminal's president. The terminal handled 362,000 tons of rubber, plywood and other break-bulk cargos last year.
The terminal isn't sitting on its hands. It's trying to attract new customers and possibly win back some old ones, Jones said.
``We're working on a couple of things, including one we may be pulling out of another port,'' Jones said.
The terminal's parent company, Norfolk Southern Corp., is lending a hand. The port authority is trying to help too, Covaney said.
When Norfolk Southern bought the terminal from the port authority in 1991 its future looked much brighter. The terminal handled hundreds of thousands of tons of specialized commodities. Its leading imports were cocoa beans from Africa and rubber from Southeast Asia.
Norfolk Southern, which had been leasing the piers on the Elizabeth River adjacent to Norfolk's West Ghent neighborhood, bought two specialized cranes to help the terminal gain even more business.
Lambert's Point Docks' troubles began in late 1992 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seized several thousand tons of cocoa beans that were reportedly infested with insects and mice.
The seizure led to lawsuits and sullied the terminal's reputation for handling cocoa beans, used by chocolate manufacturers. The shipping lines that had been delivering the beans to the terminal took them elsewhere.
``That's part of our problem, not being able to take cocoa,'' Jones said.
Two of the cocoa-carrying steamship lines, Hoegh Lines and Wilhelmsen Lines, continued to bring rubber to Lambert's Point.
Lambert's Point then encountered another problem, labor costs. Dock workers in some other ports were willing to handle break-bulk cargo for less than ILA laborers in Hampton Roads.
Lambert's Point and other terminal operators in the region painstakingly negotiated with the local ILA to set up an apprentice union that would handle break-bulk for lower wages. The two sides reached an agreement in early 1995, but it came too late to stop Waterman's departure for Wilmington.
Waterman had accounted for 25 percent of nearly 449,000 tons of cargo Lambert's Point Docks had handled in 1994 and more than 40 percent of its rubber. The work had generated 22,000 hours of work unloading the ships and 15,000 hours handling it on the docks.
It was a painful blow, but it was just one of many for Lambert's Point.
In December, Hoegh Lines made its last rubber delivery to the terminal, Jones said.
To save money, Hoegh decided to unload rubber at Norfolk International Terminals, where it has been delivering cocoa beans since it pulled them out of Lambert's Point.
One call in the port is cheaper than two, said Joseph A. Dorto, chief executive and general manager of Virginia International Terminals Inc., which operates the port authority-owned docks.
Wilhelmsen Lines followed Hoegh in February, Jones said.
``I'm not happy about the fact that we had to take business from Lambert's Point,'' Dorto said. ``But our first priority is to keep business in the port.''
The shift to Norfolk International Terminals instead of another port also keeps the rail haul of the cargo in Norfolk Southern's hands, Dorto added.
Jones didn't want to comment on the loss of the shipping lines to its larger neighbor up the Elizabeth River.
Lambert's Point had picked up two small container shipping lines last year, but one of them, the Icelandic line Samskip, recently stopped calling.
Frontier Line, which moved over from Newport News Marine Terminal last year, still calls at Lambert's Point twice a month in regular service between Columbia and the U.S. East Coast.
The terminal's principal commodity is now plywood, Jones said. It will handle about 75,000 tons of plywood this year, he said.
The terminal will handle about 55,000 tons of other cargo, including about 40,000 tons of rubber, Jones said. Some customers who ship on Waterman still prefer Lambert's Point and have their rubber barged up from Wilmington, he said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Cargo shipped through Lambert's Point docks
total rubber
1994 449,000 tons 267,000 tons
1995 362,000 tons 183,000 tons
1996 130,000 tons 40,000 tons
(estimated)
Source: Lambert's Point Docks Inc.
KEYWORDS: LAMBERT'S POINT by CNB