DonJon Marine tug Brian Nicholas, 60-years old though rebuilt and repowered, had the company’s Farrell 256 crane alongside Con Ed’s Pier 98 facility this week. The crane appeared to be assisting with work on some of the equipment on the structure.

The pier, in addition to serving as a docking point for barges carrying backup fuel oil for the 59th Street steam plant across 12th Avenue, also houses a heat exchange mechanism for cooling cables at a nearby electrical substation with river water. There were no tank barges in residence this week, making room for the crane, but over this past cold winter we saw more barge activity than usual here as natural gas supplies got tight, leading power plants around the region to switch to burning fuel oil.