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ECONOMY: Prince Rupert port’s new terminal receives first container vessel
        (AlbertaIndex, November 1, Thursday) --- The Port of Prince Rupert received its first container vessel at its new Fairview Terminal on October 30. The arrival of the 5,400-TEU Cosco vessel ANTWERP realized a long held dream for the port to be a major conduit for trade between North America and Asia.

        The idea for the container terminal was conceived a decade ago. Two years ago, construction of the break-bulk terminal began.

“The significance of the event goes well beyond opening a new chapter for Prince Rupert or even British Columbia,” said Prince Rupert Port Authority (PRPA) chair Dale MacLean.

“When it touched the shores of North America at the Fairview Container Terminal, the ANTWERP activated the first new transpacific trade corridor to be created on this continent in 100 years. The wave from this ripple effect will travel from Prince Rupert to the mid west and back again.”

And not just any trade corridor. A collaboration of CN, Maher Terminals and the PRPA, also in partnership with the government of Canada and the provincial government of British Columbia, the new service is designed to offer shippers a new express gateway with unparalleled reliability, speed and efficiency to move their merchandise between the North American mid west and Asia.

“We were in the enviable position of building, not only this state-of-the-art container terminal, but a high-efficiency express trade corridor virtually from the ground up,” said PRPA President and CEO Don Krusel.

“The extremely exciting day for us has now arrived to put our new business model to the test and begin to realize the full economic benefits for Prince Rupert and along the northern transportation corridor that we have envisioned.”

The containers, filled with a variety of merchandise for large eastern retailers, originated in the Chinese ports of Hong Kong, Yantian, Qingdao, Dalian and Xiamen as well as Yokohama, Japan.

This is part of the CKYH Alliance’s Pacific Northwest  Butterfly South Loop service, of which Cosco is one of four shipping lines, that will see a container ship from a string of nine 5,400 TEU vessels make a weekly call to Prince Rupert.

“COSCO’s vision is clear, it includes strong growth in trade between China and North America and given the facilities developed in Prince Rupert,” said Dave Bedwell, executive vice president for Cosco Container Lines.

“Cosco will be able to build on the advantages and become a long term supporter of the gateway in Prince Rupert.”

Maher Terminal crane operators began offloading the first of about 1,100 TEUs from the ANTWERP shortly after midnight. The containers have been loaded onto Maher bombcarts, and driven through one of four Canada Border Service Agency’s radiation portals before going to the intermodal yard less than 200 metres away for loading onto the rail cars.

Maher’s 17 reach stackers have offloaded about 600 containers, many filled with paper products, that arrived on the CN train from the east and double stacking them on the terminal to be loaded onto the ANTWERP.

“Unlike most terminals in North America, the Fairview Terminal is specifically designed for the efficient movement of containers between vessel and rail,” said Maher Terminals executive vice president for sales and marketing Frans van Riemsdyk.

“The terminal’s on-dock rail operations maximizes efficiency and provides a favourable environmental impact when compared with terminals with larger concentrations of truck traffic and off-dock rail facilities.”

The ANTWERP is scheduled to depart from the Fairview Terminal today. After calls in Vancouver and Seattle, it will sail back to Hong Kong to complete the butterfly service loop.

CN is positioned to provide shippers with a seamless door-to-door transportation solution and ensure the safe and secure flow of goods throughout the North American continent with precision execution.

Containers are loaded to railcars immediately after discharge and are expedited to a network of eastern destinations including Chicago Memphis, Toronto and Montreal. This new express route to mid-continental North America will assist manufactures and retailers to lower inventory costs and improve their overall supply chain economics.

The collaboration between the Canadian and US border services to review manifests before containers are loaded in Asia and to collectively identify containers to be opened and examined in Prince Rupert means CN trains will only be slowed down to pass the rail cars through security scanners at the border before entering the US.

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