The new man in charge of operations at the Port of Churchill wants to see more commodities flowing through the northern Manitoba port.
Pat Avery has joined Omnitrax Canada as vice-president of energy and commodities.
In his new job, Avery will oversee operations at the port and terminal and at the Churchill Marine Tank Farm, a wholesale distributor of petroleum and petroleum products.
In an interview from Omnitrax’s head office in Denver, Avery said other groups have looked at ways to expand Churchill’s business.
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It will be different this time, he said.
“What we’re going to do is set one or two key priorities and really focus our message and very actively go after customers,” he said.
For example, inbound fertilizer has great potential, with vessels bringing in Russian phosphate and taking Canadian grain back out, he said.
Avery has spent much of his career working in the energy and agriculture industries, including agricultural and fertilizer giant J.R. Simplot.
He plans to contact some of those industry officials to talk about using Churchill.
There are also “exciting” opportunities for the port in providing services to the increasingly prosperous region of Nunavut.
Mining activity is increasing there and in other regions of the north and that means a need for more equipment from bulldozers to laboratory equipment to computers.
That kind of equipment is now usually shipped from companies in Canada and the U.S. Midwest through the port of Montreal.
Avery said it would make a lot more sense, from the perspective of costs and logistics, to ship via the Hudson Bay Railway to Churchill and then to customers in the north.
Finally, he thinks there is room to expand grain shipments through the port, which last year totalled 529,000 tonnes, all Canadian Wheat Board grain.
“We believe we can comfortably move 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes of CWB grain and another 100,000 tonnes of non-board grain like canola and peas on top of that,” he said.
Mike Ogborn, managing director of Omnitrax, said the creation of the new position now occupied by Avery reflects a new business focus for the company and the port of Churchill.
“We want to make sure we take advantage of every opportunity there is to move freight through the port, including import, export and domestic,” he said.
