Prince Rupert Container Volume Surges 124 Percent

The Asia to Chicago and Memphis container traffic of the Port of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and its sea and rail partners, is on an upswing other North American ports have yet to experience.

More shippers in Asia and in the U.S. Midwest and Canada are shifting their traffic to Prince Rupert, in northern British Columbia just south of Alaska, in these recessionary times, Don Krusel, CEO of the Prince Rupert Port Authority, told the Journal of Commerce.

“We expect this trend to continue regardless of the timing of any recovery in trans-Pacific volumes,” he said. “Of course when the lift does come, we expect Prince Rupert and the CKYH partners to be well positioned to capitalize on the lift with a significant service advantage,” he said.

The CKYH partners (China’s COSCO line with “K” line, Yang Ming and Hanjin Shipping), with their twice-weekly calls at Prince Rupert, carried 56,573 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) between Asia and North America in the second quarter this year. That’s a 41 percent increase from the 40,043 TEUs in the first quarter this year. The 97,616 TEUs for the first half of the year surged 124 percent above the 43,555 TEUs for the 2008 period.

Canadian National Railway carries the containers between Prince Rupert and Canadian and U.S. destinations.

Overall cargo volume for the Port of Prince Rupert in the second quarter, led by containers and grain, amounted to 2.38 million metric tons, down from 3.04 million in the first quarter (-21.7 percent). But the rise in containers and grain nevertheless pulled overall traffic up to 5.42 million metric tons for the first half of the year, nearly even with the 5.44 million during the first half of 2008.

The cumulative tonnage for containers in the first half this year was 979,536 metric tons, against 439,345 in the 2008 period. Grain totaled 2.55 million tons, up from 1.6 million in the first half of 2008. Coal was the big negative factor, down to 1.03 million tons from 2.52 million in first half 2008.

Current expansion plans for the port are still on, from 500,000 TEU capacity currently to 2 million annually. The Port expects environmental assessment processes to be completed and construction to begin in late 2010, with completion “around early 2014,” said Krusel.

The CKYH partnership which launched the port has not yet had annual rival lines, and none may be expected soon. CEO Krusel said, “We have been talking to many shipping lines expecting new or amendment deployments. However, in this economic environment it is difficult to forecast when we might see additional services.” That day will come, he said, “sooner than later.”

Source: Journal of Commerce