ANCHORAGE — A Russian tanker’s mission to deliver petroleum products to an iced-in Alaska city cleared a large hurdle when a waiver was granted allowing the loading of hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline at a port in the Aleutian Islands.
The 370-foot tanker is due to arrive in the fishing port of Dutch Harbor at 6 p.m. today, the Coast Guard said Sunday.
The waiver of the federal Jones Act granted Friday was crucial to the tanker completing its mission of delivering petroleum products to Nome, a city of about 3,500 residents on Alaska’s western coastline. A huge storm this fall delayed delivery by barge and by the time the weather had improved Nome was iced-in.
There are a variety of petroleum products on hand in Nome but it doesn’t have enough gasoline and diesel fuel to last until spring.
The Renda left Russia in mid-December and headed to South Korea where it picked up more than 1 million gallons of diesel fuel. The plan was to have the tanker pick up 400,000 gallons of gasoline in Japan but officials with fuel supplier Vitus Marine LLC were told the tanker was too small to be docked. Another plan was put in place to have the fuel loaded from another ship but a storm prevented that from happening.
The decision was made to have the tanker pick up fuel in Dutch Harbor and then go to Nome. However, that plan needed a Jones Act waiver. The act is designed to protect the domestic shipping industry. It says that no merchandise shall be transported between points in the U.S. in a foreign-owned vessel.
Vitus Marine CEO Mark Smith said last week that the tanker was making good progress, more than 250 miles a day. The Coast Guard said Sunday there were no reported problems.
Smith said the tanker is no stranger to missions in U.S. waters and has been called on numerous times.
However, the tanker will need help getting through 300 miles of sea ice around Nome, even though the Ice Class Russian tanker often takes on solo missions in ice-clogged Russian waters. It also at times is aided by ice breakers.
Before the fuel delivery by-sea plane, Sitnasuak Native Corp. had considered flying fuel to Nome. But, corporation officials said that would have been very costly, perhaps increasing a gallon of gasoline to $9.
The corporation, which is responsible for delivering the fuel to its wholly-owned subsidiary Bonanza Fuel in Nome, has said delivering the fuel by tanker will be somewhat more costly than by barge but much less expensive than air deliveries.
If all goes as planned, the Renda is expected to arrive in Nome by the second week in January. But the Coast Guard said the delivery date depends on the condition of the ice, whether it is slushy and easy to get through or hardened ice several feet thick. The Coast Guard’s only functioning ice breaker is on hand to help.
Comments (6)
Add commentAlaska became a state to end the Jones Act's economic impact
One of the reasons Alaskans voted for statehood was to free the state from the Jones Act which imposes extra fees on everything shipped to Alaska. But our representatives have been bought off and the application continues- except, of course, for foreign flags which use 3rd world crews to bring Americans to Alaska for tourism. That an Alaskan town had to beg for an exemption to get much needed fuel on a foreign flag is shameful!
its even worse
This article did not mention the reason given for the waiver but others did. It was reported that the waiver was given because of national security. If true that is ridiclous. It's not that they were not going to have fuel it was just going to be expensive. Is that really national security. Why can't we just say we need a waiver because it is the right thing to do? Why the need to lie? Oh, because the honest answer would not have resulted in a waiver. So government writes a law with a requirement that can't be met then lies to meet it and everyone goes along with it.
That should be the real story here. The dishonesty of the Jones Act. Publish the written reasons for the waiver and the written justifications.
What are you talking about?
Alaska voted for statehood to end the Jones Act. Now I'd sure like some actual information on the little know piece of Alaskan history.
Time to scuttle it.
Scuttle the Jones Act. The remoteness of two states in the union makes this law onerous and burdensome. Finding adequate and timely transportation of freight in the domestic (if you can consider us domestic) market is an economic hurdle that has not been stepped up to. Buying American is a good thing. But how shall Alaskans support that if you can't get here from there. If we can't get our goods here by American flagged vessels, then we should be able to contract a Chinese junk, if we have to. How can we justify letting China do our ice breaking with this act in place? Shipping from the East Coast to Alaska through ice broken by a foreign flagged vessel would be technically (or at least ideologically) outlawed by the Jones Act. And we are losing ice breaking capability of our own with the decommissioning of our Coast Guard heavy ice breakers. This law belongs in Davy Jones' locker.
Need a good look in the mirror
We have a remote village that cannot get fuel. What do we have to do? Get a Russian icebreaker to load up in Korea and bring it in because we cannot. What is even more hilarious is that the cost of fuel won't cost much more. Add to this the statement "This tanker is no stranger to our waters." Great, in the event of a national emergency I'm sure this Russian tanker will be at our service. Think this needs fixing??
If you want to end the Jones Act's burden on your pocketbook.
If you want an end to the impact of the Jones Act on your pocketbook, find a candidate with the guts to take this on and get a research outfit, like the Institute of Social and Economic Research (my first employer in Alaska) to do a study of the money lost to every Alaskan by this continuing reward to
the maritime union. The late George Rogers of Juneau would have done the research. So would the late Howard Scammon.
Step up, someone.