{"id":133199,"date":"2026-03-24T03:13:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shipping.einnews.com\/article\/901384681"},"modified":"2026-03-24T03:13:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:13:32","slug":"freighters-depart-twin-ports-as-2026-shipping-season-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/03\/24\/freighters-depart-twin-ports-as-2026-shipping-season-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Freighters depart Twin Ports as 2026 shipping season begins"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DULUTH, Minn. (Northern News Now) – The 2026 shipping season is officially underway.<\/p>\n

This weekend, part of the seaway opened up to ships.<\/p>\n

With that, lake freighters have started to depart the Twin Ports and begin their first voyages of this year. <\/p>\n

Related<\/b>: Great Lakes shipping season ends capping a challenging year<\/a><\/p>\n

The James Oberstar made its way through the harbor earlier on Monday. The Oberstar is empty and headed to Marquette to load up with iron ore.<\/p>\n

Port leaders are hopeful this is season is better, after a difficult year last year. <\/p>\n

Jayson Hron of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority said, \u201cLast year was a little bit of a down season. There were a lot of challenges, a lot of headwinds in the world of supply chains and shipping. So definitely hoping for a little bit of a bounce back this season.\u201c<\/p>\n

Port leaders said they\u2019re tracking steel production numbers, and the Great Lakes district is tracking about 6% ahead of last year at this time.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also hopeful for another good season of big bulk cargoes.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/i><\/a> to download the Northern News Now app or our Northern News Now First Alert weather app.<\/i><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Northern News Now. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… News Now) – The 2026 shipping<\/span> season is officially underway. … this year. Related: Great Lakes shipping<\/span> season ends capping a challenging … of supply chains and shipping<\/span>. So definitely hoping for a … good season of big bulk cargoes<\/span>. Click here to download the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}