Cargo

Cargo handled by the Port of Baltimore rose nearly 17 percent last year -- its best showing since 1988.General cargo moving through the five public terminals in Baltimore jumped to 6.3 million short tons in 1994, or nearly 1 million more than in the previous year, according to a report released yesterday by the Maryland Port Administration.The increase represents the 10th straight quarter of cargo growth for the port, which has made a significant comeback after heavy volume losses in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Cargo moving through the port of Baltimore increased 3 percent for the second half of 1994 as the weak dollar continued to spark a growth in exports.At the state's five public marine terminals, cargo rose to 3,237,548 short tons, or 85,213 short tons more than during the comparable period last year, the Maryland Port Administration said yesterday.A strong second quarter this year helped offset a slight loss in cargo during the first quarter. Exports have jumped more than 17 percent to 1,505,022 short tons.

A decade ago Baltimore was booming with cargo bound for major construction projects in the Middle East. Today the port will be working in a much more competitive environment to convince shippers that Baltimore still has what it takes to handle such specialized cargo skillfully and economically.The key could be how well the Maryland Port Administration and other interested parties market the port to the shippers who will besending goods for the massive job of repairing the damage done by the war in the Persian Gulf.

Officials at the port of Baltimore are bracing for a "significant slowdown" in 1996 as revolutionary changes in the shipping industry intensify competition among East Coast ports. "The consensus is we're on the verge of a significant slowdown," Tay Yoshitani, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration, said yesterday after the release of 1995 cargo statistics. "That's obviously a concern to us." At the state's five public marine terminals, the volume of cargo rose slightly, from 6,320,792 short tons in 1994 to 6,332,836 short tons last year.

Developers of a subsidized cargo-handling facility at the Port of Baltimore hope the so-called "Container Freight Station" will provide employment for unionized longshoremen who've lost work in recent years.The facility will use members of the International Longshoremen's Association to load and unload cargo from standardized shipping containers. Their wages will be subsidized by a 30-cent-per-ton cargo assessment charged at all ILA ports.The subsidy is to help reduce the higher costs of using unionized labor and make it competitive with non-union stations operating off-pier.

William S. Ansley Jr. has moved cadavers from India to a Georgia medical school, sent radar installations over the Trans-Siberian Railroad into Mongolia and delivered aluminum moldings for houses into war-torn Beirut, Lebanon.On the high seas, Mr. Ansley is a travel agent for cargo, a customs broker and freight forwarder. It is his job to see that cargo reaches its ultimate destination by connecting through a complex labyrinth of ships, trains, trucks or planes.It is a career that has spanned more than two dozen years for Mr. Ansley, who was recently named president of Samuel Shapiro & Co. Inc., Baltimore's oldest customs broker and freight forwarding firm.

One of the lessons learned in the Persian Gulf war was the importance of airlift -- the ability to pack a cargo plane with military gear and respond to a crisis anywhere in the world on very short notice.The plane the Air Force is counting on to perform such missions in the future is the C-17, and its development is moving ahead even as the Defense Department is slashing other programs. That bodes well for McDonnell Douglas Corp., the plane's prime contractor, and the Martin Marietta Corp.

Following the release of statistics yesterday showing that general cargo at the state's piers declined 11 percent last year, Baltimore port director Brendan W. O'Malley called 1990 "a year to be forgotten."The port's poor performance was the result of a lagging national economy and "book-end strikes" -- one at the beginning of the year and one at the end -- as well as the loss of traffic from three major steamship lines, according to Mr. O'Malley, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration.

Cargo handled at state-owned terminals rose nearly 6 percent during the first three quarters this year, continuing more than a year of steady growth in business at the port of Baltimore.General cargo climbed from 3,850,795 tons to 4,049,150 tons, or 5.7 percent increase, over the same period last year, according to figures released yesterday by the Maryland Port Administration (MPA).The latest figures represent the fifth straight quarter of growth for the port, which had steadily lost cargo for a half-dozen years prior to the turnaround in mid-1992.