Keystone Coal Revives Plans for $100 Million Bulk Materials Terminal in Florida

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Keystone Coal Company, a unit of Keystone Industries LLC (Fort Myers, Florida), has filed with the planning department of the city of Jacksonville, Florida, to construct a $100 million, 10 million-ton-per-year marine terminal to handle imports of coal and other bulk materials such as petroleum coke, cement, grain and lime.

The application requests that city planners verify that the road system near Keystone's property at the northern end of Talleyrand Avenue has enough capacity to handle traffic from the planned terminal. If not, the construction timetable could be set back.

Keystone has purchased the structural steel and is currently entertaining bids from contractors for the site work, dredging and construction of a 1,000-foot berth. The company hopes to break ground by the end of the year. Bids for the material-handling equipment will be released during the next few months, with construction of the terminal to occur in stages, starting with a dock for ships. The first cargo ship could dock in late 2010 or early 2011, while construction continues on the terminal, ramping up production capacity as the market warrants.

Harbor-Ray Consultants, LLC, was retained by Keystone to aid in the engineering of the project.

As part of the project, Keystone is also planning to build a rail loop on the 70-acre property that will connect with Norfolk Southern Corporation's (NYSE:NSC) (Norfolk, Virginia) rail line, which runs to a line belonging to CSX Corporation (NYSE:CSX) (Jacksonville) and RailAmerica Incorporated's (Jacksonville) Florida East Coast Railway, a short-line railway running from Jacksonville to Miami.

One of the benefits of building a terminal at the Port of Jacksonville is that it will allow the markets in the Southwest and Midwest regions of the United States access to cheaper South American coal.

Coal from South America is much like coal found in the Powder River Basin, which is cleaner and has lower sulfur content than coal from the Appalachia region. The terminal is expected to provide customers with imported coal that is 10% to 20% cheaper than coal from the U.S.

Keystone officials anticipate a high demand for lime and building products as the economy begins to recover. The company plans to spend millions of dollars to refurbish a 245-ton-per-day rotary kiln on the project site left by the former Smurfit paperboard mill and to build silos to store and produce industrial lime.

Industrial Info Resources has been tracking this project since October 2005. Construction plans were delayed for almost two years while Keystone owner Tom Scholl and the Jacksonville Port Authority battled in court about ownership of the land and the port's right to eminent domain. Delaying construction of the terminal until now may prove to be more cost-effective for the company.

Keystone Executive Vice President Mike Meyer, in an August 19 article in The Florida Times-Union, indicated that building the terminal is actually cheaper during these slower economic times than it would have been two years ago, because the recession has lowered the cost of building materials.

"Building during the recession is not a bad thing as long as you're pretty sure the demand will be back," he said in the article.

View Plant Profile - 1067578 1026469
View Project Report - 05002707 05003445

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy related markets. For more than 26 years, Industrial Info has provided plant and project opportunity databases, market forecasts, high resolution maps, and daily industry news.