Port’s shipping season due to end this week after moving 8.3 million tonnes of grain, the most since 1997
Grain movements through the Port of Thunder Bay reached their highest level in nearly 20 years last year, according to figures released by the port authority Jan. 9.
The Ontario port moved 8.3 million tonnes of grain despite a late start to shipping because of heavier-than-normal ice cover. It was more than any other season since 1997.
Strong grain numbers were further buoyed by a busy December, in which 1.1 million tonnes of grain moved through the port.
The Thunder Bay shipping season will end this week when the final three lakers of the season leave the port.
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Tim Heney, chief executive officer with the Thunder Bay Port Authority, said the strong grain numbers were the result of expanded capacity at the port, an increase in outbound ocean vessels and a record harvest in 2013, most of which was shipped during the 2014 calendar year.
“I think the (2013) harvest was the largest in history by about 25 percent, so that was certainly a factor,” said Heney.
“And of course, we also had the Richardsons opening another terminal in Thunder Bay. That doubled their capacity, so that was definitely a factor as well.”
Heney also cited a federal government order that required Canada’s major railways to move a combined total of more than a million tonnes of western Canadian grain per week throughout most of the 2014 shipping season.
“The order to the railroads to move grain had an impact,” Heney said.
“It was more a factor of the capacity in Thunder Bay. We have a very fast car turnaround time and a very short distance (from key growing areas), so if the railroads were to accomplish that (task), Thunder Bay was the place to … do it in the most efficient (way).”
He said Vancouver’s port facilities were already congested by the time the federal order was implemented in late March, Heney added.
Thunder Bay grain movement in 2014 easily surpassed shipments the previous year.
Grain shipments in 2013 came in a hair below 5.5 million tonnes, according to the port authority.
Wheat and canola still accounted for the bulk of the shipments.
brian.cross@producer.com
