Duluth port handles exports of wind turbine components
Minnesota's Port of Duluth will handle additional ocean exports of wind turbine components, a reverse of the traditional trade pattern for these shipments arriving in the Great Lakes port.
The vessel Beluga Expectation is scheduled to arrive in Duluth today with a load of Acciona wind tower sections, nacelles and hubs from Spain. The components will be transported by truck from Duluth to the Takanka wind farm near Ellendale, N.D.
After discharge, the Beluga Expectation will be loaded with an outbound cargo of U.S.-made wind turbine blades destined to the Port of Bilbao, Spain, for various European wind farm projects.
According to the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, this is the second export shipment of this type to Spain, with the first blade export being handled in July onboard the Beluga Constitution.
'The port began to handle wind component cargo in 2004, and has seen dramatic growth in volumes of this type of cargo,' said Ron Johnson, Duluth's trade development director, in a statement. 'The Port of Duluth is central to both wind turbine component manufacturing and wind farm developments in the U.S. and Canada.'
