Barge departs Port of Palm Beach on maiden delivery of locally produced sugar
Newly constructed barge, 'Knot Refined', is transporting 18,000 tons of raw sugar from Florida to New York
American Sugar Refining, Inc., a member of West Palm Beach-based ASR Group, and its parent companies—Florida Crystals Corporation and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida—celebrated the maiden voyage of its newly constructed, state-of-the-art barge, Knot Refined, which departed from the Port of Palm Beach on Friday to deliver 18,000 tons of Palm Beach County-grown and -milled raw sugar to ASR Group's Domino Sugar Refinery in New York.
The 450-foot-long Knot Refined took more than two years to construct and is the first ocean-going, dry cargo barge of its size built in the U.S. since the early 2000s. The investment in the barge, which will make approximately 18 round trips per year from the Port of Palm Beach to transport raw sugar primarily to ASR Group’s cane sugar refineries in Yonkers, N.Y., and Baltimore, will further vertically integrate the operations of ASR Group and its parent companies.