CANMORE, Alta. Ñ Canada’s two west coast ports see a future in container traffic and they want part of the action.
It’s estimated that in 15 years 20 million containers will be shipped through North America’s west coast ports. Vancouver and Prince Rupert, B.C., plan to grab some of that traffic.
The port of Vancouver wants to increase its container business to five million a year from two million by building a container facility.
“We see most of the growth in the port of Vancouver in the container side of the business,” said Jim Cox, vice-president of infrastructure development with the Vancouver Port Authority.
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Last year the port handled 11 million tonnes of product; 15 percent of it was in containers. There is also an increasing amount of business from Asia, much of it in containers.
“We need to build capacity to respond to that capacity for containers,” Cox told the joint annual meeting of the Western Barley Growers Association and the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
Farther up the coast, Prince Rupert port also wants a part of the increasing trend. It has proposed an initial $170 million upgrade to convert part of its facilities to handle containers, said Lorne Keller, vice-president of marketing and development with the Prince Rupert Port Authority.
The port doesn’t handle containers right now, but hopes a major expansion would bring at least 500,000 containers a year as part of a trade corridor between North America and Asia.
Because there is little urban development in Prince Rupert, it would be one of the few terminals that would move containers directly from ship to rail.
