Special place for special crops

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Published: April 18, 2002

VANCOUVER – It’s a familiar landmark on the shoreline of this west

coast port city.

Anyone looking out to Burrard Inlet from downtown Vancouver or Stanley

Park can’t help but notice the incongruous sight of two giant yellow

pyramids across the water on the north shore.

Those pyramids are piles of sulfur, and for years they’ve marked the

location of Vancouver Wharves.

Two years ago those yellow pyramids got a new neighbour, a neat row of

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10 bright blue grain bins.

While not as noticeable from across the inlet, those bins represent an

important landmark of their own – the first grain handling facility at

the port dedicated solely to pulse crops and other specialty

agricultural products.

The facility was built to fill a void on the waterfront, says Susan

Forbes, manager of marketing for Vancouver Wharves.

“Those products always got short shrift in the market-place here,” she

said in an interview.

“We felt there was a good opportunity to have a facility that really

specialized in this kind of thing.”

The existing bulk grain terminals weren’t well-equipped to deal with

some of the new products that were showing up at the port as production

patterns and grain markets began changing in recent years.

“It was a real bottleneck getting these products out in bulk, and we

felt we could open that neck of the bottle by building a facility like

this,” Forbes said.

Built to handle 1.5 million tonnes a year, the terminal hasn’t achieved

those volumes in its first two years of operation. But Forbes said the

company remains optimistic about the state-of-the-art operation’s

prospects.

“We hope within the next couple of years to reach the 1.5 million tonne

target.”

She said the company is pinning those hopes partly on continued growth

in special crop production.

“We hope that trend continues. We certainly sense it’s not just a fad.”

Others involved in special crops say Vancouver Wharves’ appearance on

the scene has been positive for farmers, shippers and customers.

Gerald Donkersgoed, manager of Finora Canada Ltd., which uses the

facility for some of its special crops exports, said the facility

provides excellent quality control and much-needed storage capacity.

“The regular grain terminals were reluctant to give the industry

storage when required for shipments,” he said.

That forced shippers to try to co-ordinate shipments from the country

to meet arriving vessels, a risky business that sometimes resulted in

missed contract deadlines, demurrage charges and lost sales.

Industry officials say knowing there is storage capacity in place

enables exporters to be more aggressive in pursuing sales, especially

in the busy fall shipping season.

Vancouver Wharves’ specialized services have also prompted some of the

port’s bulk terminals to upgrade their special crop handling systems in

the last couple of years.

“Competition is a wonderful thing,” Donkersgoed said.

Garry Mihalicz of CGF Brokerage of Saskatoon said the Vancouver Wharves

development was exactly what the industry needed.

The industry has no problems with processing capabilities on the

Prairies, he said. Any logistical problems are invariably associated

with operational problems at the port.

“Anything that will improve the handling and maintain our quality, I

think it’s great.”

He said quality can give sellers a key competitive edge in world

markets.

Forbes said that’s the reputation that Vancouver Wharves is trying to

build for itself.

“I think our big strategic advantage is improved product quality,” she

said. “There’s no other facility in the port that can put product in

such good shape into

the hold.”

The $55 million Vancouver Wharves complex, which opened for business in

April 2000, provides what’s called “soft handling” of fragile or

hard-to-handle products such as food peas, lentils, chickpeas, alfalfa

pellets and cubes, canola meal, malt and malting barley.

More than 2.5 kilometres of special air-cushioned, variable speed,

low-angle conveyor belts provide a smooth ride as the products are

gently moved from rail cars to storage bins to waiting export vessels.

There, special “cascade” loading chutes allow the products to flow

smoothly into a ship’s hold, keeping dust and damage to a minimum.

The facility’s design, which includes a unique spiral loop rail track

capable of unloading 55 car unit trains in a single eight-hour shift

without breaking up the car string, is also ideally suited for handling

shipments of identity-preserved grain.

As well, the 30,000 tonnes of storage capacity reduces the risk of

demurrage charges, a traditional problem for special crop shippers.

The Vancouver Wharves complex sprawls over 111 acres of reclaimed land

directly across the water from Stanley Park.

Besides grain, the complex handles export shipments of sulfur,

fertilizer, mineral concentrates, pulp and paper, and bulk liquids such

as canola oil.

Forbes said the company will probably have to add more storage to

achieve the 1.5 million tonne grain handling target.

But while the facility was designed to allow for easy expansion,

Vancouver’s earthquake-related building codes make it an expensive

proposition, with each 3,000-tonne bin costing about $1 million to

install.

In the original construction phase, eight of the 10 bins were covered

by long-term supply agreements with shippers.

Future expansion could also be fuelled by shipments of some Canadian

Wheat Board grains. While Vancouver Wharves will never try to compete

with the port’s big bulk grain terminals, it is well suited to handle

smaller, identity-preserved wheat shipments.

“The board has talked very positively to us about using us, especially

for some of these specialty volumes,” Forbes said.

“We certainly hope to do that in the next crop year.”

Vancouver Wharves was founded in 1959 and bought in 1993 by BCR, a

provincial crown corporation. In 1999 it was rolled into a new company

called BCR Marine, which also included Canadian Stevedoring and Casco

Terminals. In March 2002 BCR announced it would sell BCR Marine.

Forbes said Vancouver Wharves sees that as a positive development that

could provide new sources of capital for expansion.

About the author

Adrian Ewins

Saskatoon newsroom

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