Overall maritime tonnage down at Port of Duluth-Superior in 2025

DULUTH – Total maritime tonnage at the Port of Duluth-Superior fell this past year to its lowest since 1938, a decline that officials at the port authority said was caused by a handful of factors they described as “headwinds.”

The 2025 season, which ended mid-January this year with the closing of the Soo Locks, saw 25.3 million short tons, a 14% drop from the previous year. Bulk cargo, which includes iron ore, limestone, grain, coal, cement and salt, was below the five-year average.

Kevin Beardsley, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, said during a news conference Jan. 30 at its offices, that the drops were caused by a variety of reasons — market trends, geopolitical forces and weather, among them.

“Anything that affects global trade will affect our port eventually,” he said.

In addition to most of the port’s main cargos taking a downward turn, the list of lows includes the fewest ocean-going vessels and lowest overseas trade since the St. Lawrence Seaway System opened in 1959. Volume of Canadian trade dropped to levels last seen in the 1980s, port authority officials said.

Iron ore, considered locally to be the “king cargo,” had a 2.9 million ton decline compared with 2024, they said. This was caused by a diminished demand for steel in the United States and the idled mines in Hibbing and Virginia, which trickled down to affect the supply chain, according to port authority communications director Jayson Hron.

Coal, one of the first commodities to move through the port when it became a commercial shipping hub in 1871, briefly reigned as “king cargo” around 2008 when it peaked at 22 million tons. This past season it was at 4.7 million.

“There’s not a critical mass of grain flowing through the Port of Superior, or our facility in particular, that supports the facility,” the company’s vice president of global grain marketing, John Griffith, said at the time.

Historically, the port was among the leaders in maritime tonnage — a way of measuring its success. Iron ore and coal are heavy cargoes that move in bulk, Hron noted.

“There are other cargos that don’t put up huge tonnage numbers, but are high-value cargos and create great opportunity for this port and for the region as a whole to support industry, manufacturing, farming. And those cargos are still moving through this port.

“It’s worth mentioning that tonnage is a way to quantify and qualify the success of the port, but not the only way,” Hron said.

The port has had a slight upswing in breakbulk cargo in the past year, which includes “high, wide, and heavy” pieces, according to Hron, like those used in wind energy. It passed 2.6 million all-time freight tons this past season and was helped along by the completion of the Twin Ports Interchange project.

Beardsley said the geography and infrastructure of this region help it to maintain its competitive advantage in the supply chain.