PRINCE RUPERT, B.C – Canada’s largest export grain terminal plans to ship about 4.3 million tonnes this year and to help make that happen, workers are at it around the clock in the last quarter of 2006.
Prince Rupert Grain Ltd. can move 1,000 cars through its 17 kilometres of rail track in 24 hours.
It is able to load bulk ships at a rate of 4,000 tonnes per hour and can handle the largest of grain ships. Ships can access the dock in year-round, ice-free conditions.
Located 700 km north of Vancouver, the terminal is 35 sailing hours closer to Asian customers than Vancouver.
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On Oct. 28, the facility was loading the Hong Kong registered Noble Jade, a 66,000 tonne dry weight ship bound for India. A recent purchase for new owners, the older ship with a Greek master and foreman and Indian crew found hydraulic problems and other shipboard equipment snags that kept it at the grain terminal a day longer than planned.
But minutes after the divided load of amber durum and Canadian western wheat was sealed under the hatches and a pair of tugs shoved the Noble Jade into
Chatham Sound and on to Hecate Strait on the eastern side of the Queen Charlotte Islands, a new boat, the Panama registered Ching Ho, tied to the dock.
Like the Noble Jade, this ship was loading spring wheat, but its destination was China. Barley already at port and canola en route by CN Rail from Prince George, B.C., filled the ship that followed.
Prince Rupert Grain officials said this pattern of loading is set to continue through the fall and may result in the second busiest year in the facility’s 22-year history.
