Business View Magazine
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“Our two big business areas are containerized cargo
- what we call vans, flats and containers - and refined
petroleum. It’s approximately a 50/50 split between the
two of those. We do have cement that’s part of our rev-
enue base; we support a small number of cruise ships
every year; and we do have one-off cargo deliveries that
come and go, but, by and large, what you’ll see tied to
the dock is a container ship or a petroleum barge or pe-
troleum tanker.”
Once offloaded from the ships, cargo then gets dispersed
throughout the state. “Incoming cargo gets distributed
along the ‘rail belt’ - the tracks that run from the Seward/
Whittier area, all the way up to Fairbanks,” Ribuffo says.
“It’s a north/south configuration. It doesn’t go east and
west. Anchorage is where the Alaska Railroad’s hub is;
their rail center is less than three quarters of a mile from
the Port. So, we’re co-located at the heart of the railroad’s
operation.” Other parts of the state are serviced by truck,
and some, especially the far-flung rural communities, by
small plane. And in contrast with many other maritime
