Metal Management Wins Deal to Unload Vessels

 The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor agreed in part to allow Metal Management to offload steel products that have not been coming into the port until now. The deal will allow Metal Management to use its laborer’s union to unload some ships at the port.

The company has been looking to add this component to its business, especially as markets for the scrap recyclables have slipped over the past several months.

Andy Naporano, Jr., the former owner of the facility and now with Metal Management, had filed a request with the Waterfront Commission early this year to allow the company to unload material.

While we had been moving bulk scrap for many years, we now can handle break bulk steel products (those that are packaged indiscrete units that can be counted individually – such as coils, slabs, billets and other finished and semi-finished products), said Albert A. Cozzi, chairman and chief executive officer of Metal Management.

Metal Management has sought the deal since earlier this year.

The company has petitioned that its staff should be able to handle breakbulk products such as slabs and steel coils. Presently employees load and offload slat, scrap metal, pig iron and hot briquetted iron out of Port Newark.

“The Commission ruling,” Cozzi explained, “means that ships carrying scrap and bulk break products, such as new steel, now can load and unload both at our facility, instead of just the scrap steel and having to go to other port cities for the break bulk. Previously, break bulk could be handled in New York Harbor only by stevedoring companies that utilized members of the International Longshoremen’s Association. We now can use our own union workers for break bulk, which means lower costs for shippers as well new markets and new jobs for us and New York Harbor.

Metal Management also claimed that allowing its own employees to unload ships would be a way to attract new business to the port.

Earlier this week the Commission gave Metal Management permission to use those workers, but only to unload steel products that have not been coming into the port until now.

In an article in The New York Times, Naporano said, "I'm a little disappointed that they restricted us to just handling steel. But overall, I'm pleased."

With the opportunity to pursue other commodities that presently are not being shipped to the port, the company expects to aggressively compete with a number of other ports in the Northeast for increased business. Delaware River ports are likely to be some of the chief areas of competition.

Naporano notes that the Metal Management facility is ideally located with excellent transportation opportunities.