This year’s shipping season is officially underway at Thunder Bay.
Tim Heney, chief executive officer at the Thunder Bay Port Authority, said the first incoming ship was due to arrive around March 25.
It is consistent with a normal opening date at the port but more than a week ahead of last year’s first arrival and almost a month ahead of 2014.
The 2014 season was delayed by persistent winter conditions and heavy ice conditions in the port area and on the lakes.
“It’s going to be an easy start-up this year,” Heney said.
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“The easiest in three years, for sure.”
Thunder Bay normally welcomes its first incoming ship a few days after the opening of the Welland Canal.
This year, the canal was scheduled to open March 21, one day later than the earliest opening on record.
Terence Bowles, chief executive officer of the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp., was scheduled to officially launch the seaway’s 58th navigation at a March 21 ceremony at St Catharines, Ont.
Ice conditions at Thunder Bay have been light this winter.
Ice breaking operations in the port area began March 15 when the U.S. Coast Guard cutter ALDER broke ice in the harbour and established tracks to facilitate commercial shipping.
Additional ice breaking work was scheduled to take place March 21 or March 22.
Ice on Lake Superior was almost non-existent this winter.
“There’s not really a lot to break up, just a little inside the break wall and in the Mission River, but really the lake itself is open this year,” Heney said.
“It never really froze this year, including inside the bay.”
Two years ago, ice breakers were at work in the harbour area until early June, he added.
The early opening means the port will also get a quick jump on grain business.
Aside from the first incoming ship, six other vessels spent the winter at Thunder Bay, including two that are already loaded with grain and three more that are likely to be loaded before the end of the month.
“Of those (six ships), three will move to load somewhere around (March 24) … and the two that were loaded with grain over the winter … will leave (before March 26),” Heney said.
Thunder Bay officials are anticipating another good season for grain, although smaller-than-normal carryout stocks could limit traffic in the pre-harvest period.
“It’s going to be a strong start … but there’s supposedly going to be less carry-over than there was the previous two years so a lot depends on how long it’s going to take to move that,” Heney said.
“Grain traffic may start to slow down in the summer prior to harvest, but it’s hard to say. We’ll certainly start off strong, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
The port recorded two of its best grain years in recent memory in 2014 and 2015.
Volumes in 2014 were the highest recorded since the late 1990s, and 2015 numbers were only slightly lower.
Heney said large prairie harvests in consecutive years boosted the port’s grain business, as did changes to prairie wheat marketing beginning in August 2012.
brian.cross@producer.com
