Page 27 - Port of Baltimore Magazine Nov/Dec 2012
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November/December 2012
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The Port of Baltimore
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FIVE STAR SERVICE
Main Office: 410-633-7800
Trailer Div.: 410-633-8120
6508 East Lombard Street
Baltimore, MD 21224
Container Sales & Modifications
Container Yard Services
Trucking & Logistics
Trailer Repair & Service
Mobile Repairs
a campaign to advocate for what we do.”
As part of that campaign, the company
plans to spiff up the old buildings and
beautify the plant so that the exterior is
representative of the interior, where the
company invested $9.2 million in capital
improvements in 2011 and $2 million in
clean-air technologies.
“The outside of the plant does not
depict the inside of the plant,” FitzGibbon
said, noting that state-of-the-art computer
systems monitor the complicated process
of sugar making. The company has adopted
heat recovery systems that have reduced
energy consumption by 20 percent in the
last 10 years, and it has hired a full-time
sustainability expert.
The factory has its own power plant.
“It’s a very industrialized process — it has
to be heavy because 6.5 million pounds a
day is a lot of sugar to make,” FitzGibbon
explained.
Some 40 cargo ships a year carrying
830,000 tons of raw sugar dock at
Domino’s berth, making it the busiest bulk
discharge terminal in the Port of Baltimore.
Two cranes, equipped with a 5,000-
pound bucket and a 7,000-pound bucket,
unload raw sugar, discharging 8,000
pounds a day. As the cranes work, inside
the ship’s hull a faint banging is heard —
the sound of a bulldozer pushing the raw
sugar into position for the scoop.
In April, the company notched a new
record when a 600-foot-long, 100-foot-
wide bulk cargo ship arrived with the
largest single shipment of raw sugar in
any port east of the Mississippi River — 95
million pounds. It took 16 days to unload it.
Once unloaded, precious piles of amber-
colored sugar more than 60 feet tall create
Stu FitzGibbon is Refinery Manager for
American Sugar Refining Inc.
