A $10 million project on the North Kenai’s Rig Tenders Marine Terminal which opened its new operations in July has seen huge amounts of interest.
At the Kenai Chamber luncheon on November 19, ASRC’s Marine Support President Joe LoSciuto detailed the upgrades that have happened to the dock, which include a 300 ton crane.
LoScuito: “So to our knowledge it’s the only 300 ton crane that’s on the water operating for removal of cargo. Up in Anchorage they have the big cranes for moving the cargo off the ships but it’s a little bit different from what we have, those are fixed up in Anchorage, they’re fixed in one position. Ours we can actually take, we can walk big structures across the dock, put them in different locations, load them on different equipment to be taken out of the facility or taken off one vessel, moved to be worked on and then loaded on a different vessel.”
Other upgrades included in this project loading and unloading with room for two large ships, fuel and potable water services, two large landing craft areas, personnel transfers to and from the ships, warm storage, and office spaces.
LoScuito added that one of ASRC’s top priorities is improving quality of life for members of the communities it works in and one of those ways is lowering local costs by eliminating high trucking fees by using the dock.
LoScuito: “So we’ve been talking with places like Spenard Builders, companies that bring a lot of their, if not made in Alaska it’s sold in Alaska so it’s got to be, particularly if it’s barged up from the Lower 48 or the Seattle area, there’s a way that it can be done that either the barge goes to Anchorage, discharges a lot of cargo there and then stops at the dock on the way back and we take the cargo off or they make their first stop here and then they go up to Anchorage. At some point ideally we would have a designated barge that’s going to the Kenai Peninsula.”
He said that the interest from local and statewide companies has been immediate and ASRC is already planning more expansion.