Great Lakes limestone shipments up 1.8% in September, still under fiv…

Great Lakes limestone shipments rise slightly in September but remain below five‑year average

MarineLink reports a 1.8 per cent year‑on‑year increase in U.S. Great Lakes limestone shipments for September to 2.7 million tonnes, though volumes remained 5.8 per cent under the five‑year monthly average with year‑to‑date volumes at 15.9 million tonnes.

Luke SmoutFounder and Editor, The Maritime Gazette

Published 1 Oct 2026

U.S. shipments of limestone on the Great Lakes rose modestly in September, increasing 1.8 per cent from the same month last year to 2.7 million tons, according to a MarineLink Maritime News report dated 1 October 2026.

Monthly volumes nonetheless remained below the month’s five-year average, with limestone cargos trailing that benchmark by 5.8 per cent, the report said.

Monthly performance

The September figure of 2.7 million tons represents the most recent monthly total published by MarineLink and shows a small year-on-year gain. The data point sits alongside the five-year comparison to illustrate that, despite the increase, shipments have not yet returned to the middle-range levels recorded in recent years.

Year-to-date position

On a year-to-date basis the limestone trade on the lakes stands at 15.9 million tons. That cumulative total provides the season-to-date frame for assessing how individual monthly results fit into the wider annual pattern.

The MarineLink item supplies the key headline numbers for September and the year to date without detailing vessel counts, loadings by individual ports, or commodity end-uses. The published figures allow direct comparison of the month with both the prior year and the five-year average but do not break out further operational metrics.

Viewed against the year-to-date total, September accounted for roughly 17 per cent of the 15.9 million tons recorded through that point in the year. That share indicates the weight of a single late-summer month in the cumulative volume reported so far.

MarineLink’s report is concise in its presentation of the data, limiting its scope to the shipment totals and the relative positions against the prior year and the five-year average. No additional explanatory commentary or sectoral analysis was included in the item.

The steadiness of the September year-on-year increase, paired with the shortfall against the five-year average, underscores the mixed signals within the recent Great Lakes limestone data as published by MarineLink on 1 October 2026.