Grain company Viterra and the Montreal Port Authority are of one mind about the proposed business deal between the two.
For both, anything beyond basic questions about it will draw a response of “no comment.”
Viterra has confirmed that it is discussing with the Montreal Port Authority options to lease and operate the company’s 262,000 tonne capacity transfer elevator at Montreal, the deepest inland seaport in North America.
Viterra’s three-paragraph news release offered few details about the proposed deal.
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“These discussions are ongoing and no transaction has been finalized at this time,” it said, a position echoed by spokesperson Peter Flengeris a few minutes later by telephone.
A call to the port authority resulted in an e-mail response, which noted that the authority made the terminal available by public tender on Sept. 1, 2010.
The grain terminal is the only one of the port authority’s facilities that is not leased to a private operator.
“Unfortunately we cannot comment further about this matter as long as any transaction is (un)completed” said Jean-Paul Lejeune, director of communications for the authority.
The transfer elevator is coming off an outstanding year in 2010, with container volume increasing by 6.1 percent to 1.32 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TE Us).
Total traffic, including such things as salt, iron ore, raw sugar, scrap metals, fertilizer, gypsum, copper and zinc, is expected to be higher by 4.4 percent this year.
The Montreal Port Authority, an agency of the federal government, operates the world’s largest inland port, handling 26 million tonnes of cargo annually.
Port of Montreal
Grain volumes handled at the port transfer elevator:
2009
Maritime:
•Inbound: 560,409 tonnes Outbound: 1,127,345 Total: 1,687,754
Rail and Truck:
•Inbound: 639,042 tonnes, Outbound: 91,76 Total: 730,805
2008
Maritime:
•Inbound: 450,246 tonnes Outbound: 1,020,774 Total: 1,471,020
Rail and Truck:
•Inbound: 734,323 tonnes, Outbound: 110,885 Total: 845,208
Source: Montreal Port Authority
