Coal Transloading Terminal Opens in the Heart of the Inland River System
The new Calvert City Terminal, developed by Southern Coal Handling Company, an established coal handling, engineering, and operations organization, in conjunction with Ashley Capital, LLC, a national financing and development company, provides a new gateway for receiving, blending, and transloading western coals and Illinois Basin coals. The new partnership, known as SCH Services, LLC, has made the Calvert City Terminal the first of what is expected to be several large-scale bulk material handling facilities.
The Terminal, to be known as Calvert City Terminal, is located at Mile 14 on the lower Tennessee River, near its confluence with the Ohio, and began operations in February. Calvert City Terminal is strategically located on the Paducah and Louisville Railroad in a large industrial park at Calvert City, Kentucky. This central location provides ready access to BNSF, CNIC, UP, NS, and CSX railroads, as well as the Tennessee, Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.
The new terminal is capable of receiving 3500 tons per hour of rail delivered coal on a 150-car loop track. The rail unloader can handle rotary dump and rapid discharge cars, and the coal can be sent direct to barge or to stockpile. “We built it to address the expanding need for transloading and for stockpile space, but also to provide a competitive advantage for us and our customers to meet today’s transloading needs more efficiently and more precisely,” says Bill Rager, SCH VP and General Manager. The stockpile is capable of holding up to one million tons of various quality coals. Accurate blending can be accomplished all from the stockpile, or by blending the stockpiled coal simultaneously with coal from a train being unloaded. The rated capacity of the barge loadout is also 3500 tons per hour, and Calvert City Terminal intends to load 15 to 20 barges per day
The high capacity terminal will operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and SCH already has commitments for throughput of about six million tons per year. The terminal offers computer controlled state of the art weighing, blending, and sampling equipment, with both inbound and outbound weighing and sampling. The abilities to reload and blend coal back into railcars and to unload and blend coal from barges are additional features that are planned to be available at Calvert City Terminal in the near future. These facilities will enhance the already substantially flexible capabilities of the terminal.
Southern Coal Handling is already marketing the remaining capacity to utilities on the inland river system as a new avenue for receiving PRB and other western coals and for blending this coal with Illinois Basin coals. Calvert City Terminal presently has a long-term contract to transload, stockpile, and blend coal for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). “It’s great!” says Gary Quinn, SCH VP of Utility Services, “This terminal is perfect for utilities that are looking toward integrating the cleaner, lower cost western fuels into their fuel mix.”
In addition to this terminal, Southern Coal Handling Company, located in Madisonville, Kentucky, also operates the Havana Terminal, on the Illinois River in Havana, Illinois. SCH and its affiliate companies, Cornette Engineering Services and SCH Terminal Company, offer a broad range of coal handling services, including designing, building, and operating coal handing facilities for Midwestern utilities. With its new affiliation with Ashley Capital, SCH can now offer to finance and own large coal handling projects as well. Current SCH clients include Edison Mission Energy, Dynegy, Ameren, and TVA. SCH also represents the E-Crane™ “equilibrium” barge unloading systems to the utility industry. These economical and revolutionary replacement systems have already been installed at Ameren, Alabama Power, and Gulf Power generating stations.
(Before and After)
Calvert City Terminal plans to expand its operation within the next 18 months, and is actively seeking new customers. The terminal is now operational, and interested visitors are welcome. Parties interested in the transloading and blending services offered at Calvert City Terminal, or in any of the other services offered by SCH, can call (800) 547-9918.
The picture above: (The stockpile stacking and reclaiming system is shown being readied for service at Calvert City Terminal in January. The unit travels on 1,200 feet of track that runs through the center of the stockpile area, and can stack coal on both sides. Traveling reclaim hoppers travel on the same rail directly accessing each and every coal pile, so reclaiming is always short, quick, and flexible.)
