Red Dog Port
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Ore concentrate storage at the Red Dog Port |
Red Dog Port Expansion
The Delong Mountain Terminal System - more commonly called the Red Dog Port - was completed in 1990 by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) to provide access to the Red Dog mine. Located 15 miles south of the Native Village of Kivalina, on the Chukchi Sea, the Red Dog port facility consists of a shallow water dock, ore concentrate storage barns, offshore conveyor concentrate loading facility, fuel distribution and storage systems, and a 52-mile haul road to the mine. Teck Cominco, operator of the Red Dog mine, has a 50-year non-exclusive priority right with AIDEA to use the port facilities and road for transportation of ore and mine supplies; the company also is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the system.
The port is ice-free, on average, 100 days a year. Red Dog concentrate is hauled continuously from the mine; during the time the port is closed by ice, the concentrate is stored in two large storage barns at the port. Approximately 1.4 million tons of zinc and lead concentrates from Red Dog are stored at the port annually. During shipping season, ore concentrate is loaded onto shallow-draft lightering barges, which then transport the concentrate to deep-sea vessels anchored offshore. The concentrate is shipped to smelters in Europe, Asia and Canada - Red Dog provides 60% of the feed at Teck Cominco's Trail Smelter in British Columbia.
Construction of the port was funded through state appropriations and by the sale of $103 million in tax-exempt bonds.
In 1996 - in response to Teck Cominco's demand for more port capacity to support increased mine production - expansion of some of the port's facilities began; the majority of these were completed by late 1998. These included the construction of a 96-person camp, the expansion of the powerhouse and the addition of a generator and the construction of a new concentrate storage building and its connection to the material handling system. To finance expansion, AIDEA sold $150 million in bonds. Additionally, Teck Cominco funded the construction of a new 2.4 million gallon fuel storage tank as well as some other smaller infrastructure projects - such as a new sewage treatment plant, a new stormwater treatment plant, and dust control modifications to the truck dump.
The present investment base in the Red Dog Port is approximately $267 million.
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