River Metals Recycling Expands Business to Handle Barge Dismantling

River Metals Recycling Co. recently completed an addition to one of its facilities to allow it to handle barge dismantling services.

Under a project, completed by Kelley Construction, River Metals has had some new equipment installed at the American Commercial Barge facility in Louiseville, Ky., that will allow River Metal to pull the barges out of the water and then be processed into scrap raw material.

While the facility is on property owned by ACBL, River Metals has a facility adjacent to the property, which will allow the barges to be processed at the facility without having to transport over a longer distance.

The pullaway system, completed several weeks ago, will allow ACBL to “right size” its barge fleet,” said Mike Edwards, a spokesman for American Commercial Barge.

Edwards adds that the move to reduce its fleet has been done after a run-up in barge production that took place more than 20 years ago. “At one point there was a four month backlog of barges waiting to be scrapped.”

With the completion of the River Metals site, ACBL has three locations in the U.S. where scrap companies are pulling barges from the waterways for scrapping purposes.