Winterport Docks lures foreign cargo

WINTERPORT – Stevedores descended Sunday on Winterport Terminals to unload a shipment of squid from the Falkland Islands.

The 1,000-metric ton frozen cargo arrived on the freighter Frio Poseidon after a journey from the bottom of the globe to this port on the Penobscot River. It should take about four days to unload and store the cargo.

It is a rare occurrence for big ships to land at Winterport Terminals, but owner Dave Danielson spends a good part of his time working to attract them. The terminal’s frozen storage warehouse handles a steady stream of domestic business, but Danielson views the international trade as a way to boost annual revenues and increase traffic at the Winterport Docks. “This is a very good job for us and we’d like to get a lot more of the international trade going here again,” Danielson said Sunday. “Our bread and butter is domestic freezer and storage business, but we see a lot of potential in the international markets, too.”

Danielson said the Winterport facility is ideally situated because it provides access to both rail and highway overland transportation. He said the cargo of squid will be shipped to Nova Scotia and Washington state by rail and to Massachusetts by truck. The squid will be used mainly as bait for the snow crab and swordfish fisheries. “You’d be surprised how huge this whole frozen bait market is. It’s worldwide,” he said.

The cargo was loaded in the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic for a Taiwanese company and shipped on a Panamanian-registered freighter with a Greek owner and crewed by seamen from Latvia, Ukraine, and other republics of the former Soviet Union.”When I bought the company, my ambition was to go international,” he said.

Danielson acknowledged that Maine is a little removed from the large markets, thus making it difficult to attract import and export business. He said that in most cases, ships will not come into a port unless they are assured a return cargo. The Frio Poseidon will be leaving empty.

Danielson said his goal is to bring frozen produce from the Dakotas in the upper Midwest to the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad for shipment to export markets. He said that would create what in the business is called a liner service. Liner service is when a cargo ship makes a regularly scheduled stop at a specific port. He said Winterport could handle two ships a month.

Danielson said the shipping business depends on access to cargoes and being in the right place at the right time..”There are several different factors but market dynamics play a big part,” he said. “It’s very complicated. It’s kind of a maze of fees and all kinds of dynamics and conditions that all have to come together at once to make it work.”