Churchill, Man. — The first grain ship of the season is loading Manitoba’s northern Port of Churchill.
Captain Quilo and crew brought their vessel, the Clipper Bettina, to Churchill on Sept. 6 and grain loading started Sept. 9.
Within days the ship will leave for Africa with 36,000 tonnes hard red spring wheat, and make its first delivery to Kenya with several other stops within Africa.
Grain exporters Richardson International are behind the first shipment of the year, and company wheat merchant Jerry Trenouth said they like moving grain through Churchill due to its accessibility export-wise.
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“The Port of Churchill is geographically closer to the prairie farmer. So there’s less logistics to get it to an export terminal,” he said.
While the northern port typically sees its first shipment in early August, it had a later start this year to lower the cost of maintenance on the track, according to port officials.
Though, Jeff McEachern, executive director of the Churchill Gateway Development Corp., says the late start also has to do with high supplies and low demand within the global grain market.
“I’ve talked to other port terminals and people in the industry and they’re saying the same thing,” he said adding that, “the grain isn’t moving as quickly as we would like.”
McEachern said up until about a week ago they were still unloading last year’s grain.
The Hudson Bay port is budgeting for a 500,000-tonne grain season in 2015, said Tweed earlier in August. Last year the port handled 540,000 tonnes of grain.
The port is expected to operate until about Nov. 6.
