Port’s container traffic up 87.3 per cent in first quarter
By MARK WILSON
May 31, 2010
The proposed movement of up to 1.4 million tonnes a year of molten sulphur in insulated railway tank cars from Alberta to the Pacific is unlikely to cause environmental problems at tidewater, consultants have concluded.
Keystone Environmental Ltd., of Burnaby, B.C., has examined the delivery of sulphur to Ridley Terminals Inc., at Prince Rupert, where it would be cooled, pelletized and stored to await shipment to Asian markets.
The consultants found that the cumulative impacts of sulphur handling at RTI on human health, soil, water, air, vegetation and animal life are unlikely to be adverse if dust and vapour controls and other mitigatory measures are implemented and federal and provincial regulations followed.
An environmental assessment review will have to be conducted internally by RTI’s landlord – the Prince Rupert Port Authority – which already has on file an Environmental Panel Assessment that was done for a partially built sulphur forming and storage facility abandoned in 2001 by Sulphur Corp. of Canada Ltd.
ICEC Terminals Co. Ltd., of Calgary, which is partnering with RTI to create a sulphur export terminal, plans to take over and modify part of the Sulphur Corp. of Canada development to give an initial annual handling capacity of 800,000 tonnes of sulphur a year, with the potential to increase annual volume to 1.4 million tonnes. At 800,000 tonnes throughput, the terminal will generate a dozen ship calls a year. Callers will make use of RTI’s existing shiploading and handling equipment.
RTI chairman Bud Smith is expecting the terminal will this year surpass a traffic record of 6.9 million tonnes set in 1994, though it will still stay far below RTI’s rated capacity of 12 million tonnes of bulk products a year.
Prince Rupert Grain Ltd., the other pillar of the port’s commodities traffic, shipped 1.27 million tonnes of cereal in the first quarter of 2010, a slight gain of 621 tonnes over its performance in the opening three months of last year.
The elevator reported increases in canola, alfalfa pellets and grain pellets that more than offset a fall in wheat exports.
Traffic through Prince Rupert’s Fairview Container Terminal rose 87.3 per cent to 76,860 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) during the first quarter, with exports to the fore as shippers moved increasing amounts of lumber, logs and aluminum billets in outbound containers.
In April, Fairview received a maiden visit from the Cosco Yokohama, the first of seven 7,500-TEU ships that Cosco is placing in a transpacific service that has Prince Rupert as the first call on the West Coast. The new ships replace 5,500-TEU vessels.