Liberty House wants South Carolina port to stay open

United Kingdom-based Liberty House Group is urging officials in South Carolina to keep the breakbulk port facility in Georgetown, South Carolina, open so it can serve an area steel mill it is negotiating to purchase.

According to an online article from MyrtleBeachOnline, Liberty House remains in discussions to buy the idled former Georgetown Steel complex from its current owner, Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal. The negotiating process for the 750,00-tons-per-year wire rod mill, which includes a 600,000-tons-per-year electric arc furnace (EAF), was announced by ArcelorMittal in April 2017.  

At the same time, Liberty House is urging the South Carolina (S.C.) Ports Authority to keep the breakbulk port in Georgetown open, despite sharply falling traffic and the need for dredging near the port.

A Liberty House spokesperson is quoted as saying that the port’s water level is deep enough to bring in barges carrying scrap metal and other supplies to the mill and to allow it ship out steel wire by barge. Gordon Spelich, a consultant for Liberty House, is quoted as saying that dredging to make the water deeper would be appreciated, “but that’s going to be a longer-term thing.”

The S.C. Ports Authority has reportedly determined that the Georgetown port “is at the end of its useful life,” with South Carolina’s port traffic having largely moved to container ports in nearby Charleston.

According to MyrtleBeachOnline, less than 7,500 tons of material moved through the Georgetown port in fiscal year 2017, down from nearly 250,000 tons in fiscal year 2016.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers says dredging could cost more than $70 million and involve moving some 1 million tons of material from the floor of the bay surrounding the port.

The South Carolina news organization learned that Liberty House, while negotiating with ArcelorMittal, has revealed it would spend an estimated $26 million in startup costs at the Georgetown mill in a restart that would create some 350 “direct and indirect jobs.”

But the plan to use barges clashes with the S.C. Ports Authority, which says the port is at the end of its useful life, and with some area officials had taken steps to redevelop the area around the port if it closes.

A former Georgetown council representative quoted in the article and a nearby resident both expressed support for keeping the port open. “We lose something significant if we don’t continue to be a port city,” said Jeanette Ard, the former councilwoman.

The wire rod plant operated under the name Georgetown Steel until 2003. The mill later became part of the ArcelorMittal Group but was idled by that global steelmaker in 2015.

The Liberty House consultant Spelich expresses confidence in the article that the U.K.-based firm can put the mill and the port back on good footing. “We would look to expand down the road if we’re successful, and I’m fairly confident we’re going to be successful,” he remarks.