ABS Chairman Cites Constraints on Great Lakes Shipping

Robert D. Somerville chairman and CEO of the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) cited “insufficient water levels in the ports and channels which continue to mean that your ships’ carrying capacity cannot be fully utilized” as one of the problems that beset shippers in the Great Lakes prefacing this statement by saying “the efficiency of the entire Great Lakes transportation system is absolutely remarkable” despite the constraints on the system.

Somerville was addressing the joint conference of the Lake Carriers’ Association and Canadian Shipowners’ Association held in Cleveland on August 12.

He praised the carriers saying that they are “taken for granted under appreciated under the radar and subject to the whims of legislators who with a few notable exceptions do not understand how integral this industry is to the global and their local economies.”