To many Duluth residents, it seemed as though there were a lot more boats than usual coming into port last year.

Their perceptions turned out to be correct. This week, the Duluth-Seaway Port Authority, which manages the Duluth-Superior port, announced that the port welcomed 775 vessels during the 2023 shipping season, the most since 2018. Total shipments exceeded 31.7 million tons, up 4.5% over 2022’s total and slightly ahead of the port’s five-season average.

As always, taconite made up the vast majority of those shipments. During the 2023 season, Duluth-Superior shipped more than 21.5 million tons of iron ore, a 12.6% increase over 2022 and a 28-season high:

• Domestic iron ore shipments increased 11%, while exports of iron ore jumped 22%.
• Nearly 2.6 million tons of ore sailed from Duluth-Superior in June, the most in a single month since May 1993.
• In January 2024, nearly 1.1 million tons of iron ore sailed out of Duluth-Superior, the biggest January shipment since the port launched electronic record-keeping in 2003.

Going with the grain

Duluth-Superior also posted season-over-season tonnage increases across other cargo categories. Cement tonnage, for instance, jumped 29%. And grain shipments — which included durum wheat, spring wheat, oats, and beet pulp pellets — increased 22.5% to 789,604 tons. Export tonnage of durum wheat nearly tripled the previous season’s total. “Though still down from historical averages, [grain shipments] rebounded significantly from 2022,” says Deb DeLuca, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority’s executive director.

One contributor to the rebound was the reactivation of Duluth’s Elevator A, which was purchased from General Mills by Omaha-based grain handler Hansen-Mueller. The grain elevator’s reactivation “helped further diversify the grain business in our port, opening connections with different producers and buyers who otherwise might not have been using Duluth-Superior to ship grain,” DeLuca says. She also notes in the fourth quarter, the shipping pace for grain “picked up dramatically, and we’re hopeful that it carries over into 2024.” Port Authority staffers, DeLuca says, are “working to increase grain tonnage on trade missions around the globe and in business meetings here within the Upper Midwest.”

Containerized cargo tonnage also climbed in 2023, nearly quadrupling the previous season’s total. Most of this increase sailed as part of the Duluth-Antwerp liner service, a partnership of cargo handler Duluth Cargo Connect and Netherlands-based ocean transport firm Spliethoff. The service, launched last year, was the first regular trans-Atlantic liner service from Duluth-Superior since the 1970s. Cargo transported by container in 2023 included consumer goods, building materials, and food-related items. Some of the containers handled in Duluth-Superior move on rail via the CN Duluth Intermodal Terminal.

Driving iron

The cargo that Northern Minnesota pays the most attention to, of course, is iron ore. Why was 2023 such a busy season for taconite? “It starts with strong demand for domestic steel,” DeLuca notes. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, net raw steel production in the U.S. in 2023 was slightly above 2022. Most of the iron ore–almost 70 percent in 2023–shipped out of Duluth-Superior is used by domestic steel mills on the lower Great Lakes. DeLuca notes that “80% of the nation’s first-pour steel comes from ore that sails across Lake Superior.”

One of the big drivers of Great Lakes steel demand is the automotive sector, which posted a generally strong 2023. Early estimates project that about 15.5 million new vehicles were sold in the U.S. last year, a 12.4% increase from 2022. The auto sector’s strength helped boost the performance of steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs, which also owns the Minorca, United Taconite, and Northshore mines on the Iron Range. (U.S. Steel owns two other taconite facilities, Minntac and Keetac, and it co-owns Hibbing Taconite with Cleveland-Cliffs.) During the first three quarters of 2023, Cliffs shipped nearly 12.4 million tons of steel, a 13.5% increase over the first nine months of 2022.

There’s no guarantee that 2024 will provide the same kind of smooth sailing for the Duluth-Superior port. Nippon Steel’s tentative acquisition of U.S. Steel could cause some disruption. But the ship seems to be heading in the right direction.