The Ohio Rail Development Commission (ODC) approved a $500,000 loan to Mountaineer Products Inc., doing business as MPR Supply Chain Solutions, to purchase 50 acres along the Ohio River with frontage on two rail lines as part of the first, $9.5 million phase of a multimodal project.
MPR already has a 17-acre facility in Bellaire, Ohio. The property is in an industrial park along I-470, I-70 and State Route 7. The company purchased river frontage in 2010 to install a harbor and expanded it in 2019.
The new site, purchased in sections during January and February, is one-half mile south. In addition to outside storage, the property will have warehouses and an office complex, said Natalie Brown, president of MPR Transloading & Energy Services.
MPR also plans to install enough private rail for a unit train for the transloading of fertilizer, polyethylene, steel, salt, friction reducer, pipe, sand and other commodities from barge to rail and rail to barge. The property has rail frontage on the Wheeling & Lake Erie and Norfolk Southern railways.