Page 124 - Rukert - 100th Anniversary

SPOTLIGHT ON WOOD PULP
RUKERT TERMINALS SPECIALIZES IN EXPERT HANDLING OF A WIDE ARRAY OF RAW MATERIALS USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF EVERYDAY PRODUCTS. These are the building blocks for industrial and commercial finished goods. Since 2016, Rukert Terminals has been handling wood pulp — the primary component of paper towels, toilet tissue and printing paper.
The wood pulp handled at Rukert Terminals is short-fiber wood pulp harvested from eucalyptus trees in Brazil, the world’s top producer and exporter of wood pulp. Brazil has ideal soil, climate and topography for eucalyptus forests. These fast-growing trees can be harvested every six
to seven years, yielding a high-quality and low-cost raw material. Once harvested, the wood is processed in a factory to remove the fibrous raw material from the unusable portion of the wood. The semi-processed product called wood pulp is then packaged into bales and exported in cargo vessels.
Each month, employees discharge the packaged wood pulp from vessels
at Lazaretto at a rate of 600 tons per hour. Packages of eight bales weighing 4,400 pounds are stacked four high in “R” building, using specialized lift trucks. Each day, the pulp is sent out via truck and rail to paper processing plants in the United States and Canada. Operators load as many as 15 railcars and 80 trucks of wood pulp per day, making it a top mover at
Rukert Terminals.
to handling dirty or dusty commodities. One Warehouseman said moving wood pulp was “like handling butter.” After the first vessel of wood pulp moved successfully through the terminal, Norm gladly started ordering new lift trucks and additional clamps to make the operation more efficient.
In September of 2016, an outside demolition company began removing the non-operational two-story warehouse at Pier 1. A truck bridge that crossed over South Clinton Street into the warehouse was also removed. Demolition was necessary because the superstructure placed considerable weight and undue stress on the actual layberth pier. The project took 13 months.
During the Pier 1 demolition, the S.S. John W. Brown was moved to Rukert Terminals’ “C” pier. As Norm hoped it would, “C” pier had proved useful over the years. The extra pier had berthed cargo vessels, layberth ships and now a Liberty Ship. In addition, Rukert Terminals’ long-time neighbor, Lehigh Cement, had been bringing cargo to “C” pier since 2005. Each year, self-unloader vessels or barges carrying up to 150,000 metric tons of cement and slag (a component of cement) dock at “C” pier or “A” berth. From there, the cargo is pneumatically pumped via a hose into Lehigh’s tall silos, which stand on the site of the original Lazaretto Lighthouse.
Rukert Terminals Corporation marked
its 95th anniversary in 2016. In December, the company got word of a significant development at city hall. The MIZOD protective zoning district around the Port of Baltimore, established in 2004 and extended in 2009, was set to expire in 2024. However, on December 5, 2016, the Baltimore City Council passed, and the Mayor signed, a new zoning code into law. The new code, called “TransForm Baltimore,” designated Rukert Terminals and the Clinton Street waterfront “MI”
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