Eagle Rock Aggregates News

Bulk shipping operations could soon return to the San Francisco Bay's Port of Oakland for the first time in 20 years. The Port said  it’s negotiating with a Canadian building materials shipper to transport sand and gravel here.The Port’s governing Board yesterday authorized talks with Vancouver-based Eagle Rock Aggregates. The firm seeks a vessel berth along with 20 acres of adjacent land at the Port’s Outer Harbor Terminal.Eagle Rock would use the property as a base for distributing sand and gravel for Bay Area construction sites. The firm said it wants a 15-year lease for one berth on Outer Harbor. Eagle Rock would ship sand and gravel from British Columbia to produce concrete for Bay Area builders.Oakland is one of the busiest container seaports in the U.S.

The unique berth at D44 in Long Beach, Calif., designed in partnership by Seabulk and Bellingham Marine, was developed in response to a need for an environmentally friendly, low cost berthing system designed specifically for the docking of Panamax-class, self-discharging bulk carriers. The berthing system developed by the team for Eagle Rock Aggregates includes two stifflegs supported by match-cast, post-tensioned floating concrete platforms. The legs position the self-unloading bulk carrier and provide a load path to bearing walls at the top of the bank.

After three years of annual double digit growth in Port of Redwood City tonnage from 2012-2014, the fiscal year 2015 Port tonnage declined slightly by 3.8 percent. However, the total tonnage for the year ending June 30, 2015 was the fourth highest in the port’s modern history at 1,715,633 metric tons, reflecting the continuing strong demand for construction materials in Silicon Valley and the South Bay, particularly the high quality sand and aggregates shipped to the port from British Columbia.

Eagle Rock Aggregates, U.S. subsidiary of Polaris Materials Corporation, has completed a new aggregate import facility at the Port of Long Beach that features a docking structure which will be used for mooring mid-sized cargo ships. “The existing berth structures at the site were designed for barges,” said Herb Wilson, President and CEO of Polaris Materials. “We removed them and replaced them with an advanced berthing system designed specifically for the docking of our Panamax- class, self-discharging bulk carriers. The new berthing system includes two stiff leg, dual purpose moorings.

Reflecting a significant increase in construction in the Bay Area and the high quality of building materials from British Columbia, the Port of Redwood City said it has experienced a 19% increase in cargo movement across its docks for the fiscal year 2013/2014 that ended June 30. The 12-month figure was 1,784,659 metric tons (MT), up from 1,493,190 MT from the previous fiscal year and the highest at the port since 2006. It also was the third highest in modern Port history, behind 1,833,022 MT in 2005-2006 and 1,908,172 MT in 2004-2005.

A new well-intentioned maritime fuel regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is poised to crowd roads and increase onshore air pollution, maintain shipping industry leaders Rod Jones and Bill Terry, President and CEO of the CSL Group and of Eagle Rock Aggregates, respectively. They explain that the rule requires the use of high-cost, ultra-low sulfur fuels in ships operating within the 200 nautical mile (nm) boundary of the North American Emission Control Area (ECA).

The final in a series of five Canada Steamship Lines' (CSL) state-of-the-art, new Trillium Class self-unloading Panamax vessels, the 228-meter long CSL Tacoma, embarked on her maiden voyage from the Chengxi Shipyard in Jiangyin, China on Oct. 12, and is making her maiden cargo voyage to San Francisco Bay. She is scheduled to arrive at the Port of Redwood City at noon on Wednesday, November 6, with sand and gravel construction materials from an Eagle Rock Aggregates quarry in British Columbia.