Dry-Bulk Division

Products carried include, petroleum coke, coal, fertilizers, grains, scrap metal, steel plates, steel coils, sugar, crushed glass and a number of other commodities for a variety of spot and long term accounts. In 1999, in one shipment Moran successfully delivered to Santos, Brazil 16 locomotive engines and returned from the same port with windmill blades for an account in the United States.


Three of Moran's five dry-bulk barges are of unique vessel design, in that they are one single hold with no cross members or bulkheads. This BRIDGEPORT class of barge was originally built in 1986 for an electric generating utility that hoped to transport coal from New York Harbor to its Long Island Sound electric generating station. When the time came for this particular utility to begin receiving coal, it found that coal was no longer available in New York and that deliveries would have to originate from the Hampton Roads area only. One problem, the discharge system in place was designed for inland, open hopper type barges only. Understanding this need for the servicing vessel to exhibit both the carrying capacity and strength of an oceangoing vessel but to provide the simplicity and cargo hold accessibility of an inland hopper barge, Moran went to work. The result was the design of a class of barges that are the largest single hold vessels of their kind. So successful was this design for service with this utility and other more conventional coal receivers that Moran ultimately built two more, the SOMERSET and the PORTSMOUTH. These three BRIDGEPORT class barges join the 27,000 ton barge VIRGINIA and the recently acquired 20,000 ton barge CAROLINA.