Ports of Indiana-Burns Harbor opened its 2023 international shipping season on April 11 with the arrival of Polsteam’s Isadora, a bulk carrier from Ijmuiden, Netherlands, through the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes.
Owned and operated by Polsteam and built in 1999, the Cyprus-flagged Laker picked up its steel cargo in the Netherlands, stopping in Cleveland first, prior to arriving at the Ports of Indiana-Burns Harbor. The trip took about two weeks. Workers from the International Longshoremen's Association and International Union of Operating Engineers will unload more than 8,350 tons of steel coils at the port before Captain Piotr Szczesniak and his 21 crew members continue to Milwaukee to discharge the ship’s remaining cargo.
The Ports of Indiana is recognized as one of the top steel ports in the country for handling steel and metal-related products.
The St. Lawrence Seaway opened its locks to ocean vessels for the 65th international shipping season on March 22 after closing in late December. The Seaway closes for maintenance in the winter, but the Ports of Indiana is open year-round handling cargoes by river barges, lake vessels, trains and trucks.
The port handled 3.45 million tons of cargo in 2022, its highest annual shipment total since it began operation in 1970. During 2022, the Burns Harbor and Jeffersonville ports both set new records for total annual shipments, and the overall cargo volume was the fourth highest in Ports of Indiana’s 61-year history.