[raggedy13]

^Sounds good. Here is another interesting article I just came across:

Amalgamating growth
Metro Vancouver is bright spot on West Coast

PACIFIC SHIPPER, NEW JERSEY
December 8, 2008
MARK WILSON



As the most diversified major marine gateway in North America, Port Metro Vancouver has enough depth and strength to withstand the continent’s economic turbulence.

True, the pace of container growth halved from the usual 7 to 8 percent annual rate of increase, but the port was insulated from a slump in U.S. imports by its focus on the healthier Canadian market.

Metro Vancouver gained its diversity when three regional ports were merged, or amalgamated, into the larger entity. That gave the port container, roll-on, roll-off, breakbulk and domestic barge specialties in one fell swoop.

Port Chief Executive Chris Badger said growth in containers is expected to recover to 8 percent a year by 2011, based on a mix of internal and independent economic projections and factors in shipper expectations.

“Compared to the rest of the West Coast, our numbers have been fairly positive,” Badger said. “We are 96 percent focused on the Canadian container market and it has proved robust, which was a pleasant surprise.”

Loaded inbound containers during the first six months of 2008 were up 2 percent to 608,021 TEUs, while the count of loaded export containers grew by 11 percent to 493,483 TEUS.

Badger said that the number of loaded outbound containers could probably have gone higher but for a capacity constraint. “It’s the old story. Ships cannot carry as many loaded export containers, which move heavy loads such as forest products and grains, as they can containers with lighter import goods,” he said. “We don't know what the export numbers would have gone to had there been more capacity available.”

Badger said there was a correlation between the growth in containerized exports and a 14 percent fall in breakbulk traffic, due in large part to the transfer of ship capacity to more lucrative trade routes.

Bulk commodities account for the major share of the port’s tonnage. The numbers were up for coal (13 million tons), potash (3.4 million tons) and sulphur (2.7 million tons). The first two of these commodities posted 10 percent gains and sulphur exports rose by 7 percent.

Exports of petroleum products to the California market through the Westridge marine terminal of Kinder Morgan Canada and its pipeline from Edmonton helped lift bulk liquid shipments through the port to 4.69 million tons.

Badger said there is a time lag before any slowing in the national economy shows up fully in container statistics, and the port is hoping that its box traffic will continue to post gains for the balance of the year.

Confidence in the longer-term prospects for container business remains strong. Vancouver handled 1.22 million TEUs during the first half of the year; the full 12-month total in 2007 was 2.31 million TEUs. Annual single-digit gains can give powerful results over time, as the port's container traffic has grown from 1.55 million TEUs in 2003.

Badger said existing container-handling capacity is about 3 million TEUs a year and needs to be increased to 7.5 million TEUs by 2025, to meet forecast growth.

Next year, the commissioning of a third berth and an increase in yard area at Vancouver’s largest container terminal — Deltaport, 13 miles south of Vancouver's inner harbor — will yield a capacity gain of between 350,000 and 700,000 TEUs for Deltaport operator TSI Terminal Systems.

Then there are plans for a new container facility — T2 — next to Deltaport, to be developed in partnership with APM Terminals North America and SNC-Lavalin. APM Terminals is a unit of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group of Denmark, and Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin is one of the 10 largest engineering firms in the world.

T2 is expected to be a three-berth facility and could be sized to handle 2 million TEUs a year. There is no confirmed timetable for project completion.

Badger said there is scope to press extra capacity from two container terminals on the south shore of Vancouver’s inner harbor and to convert wharfage on the north shore of the harbor to container handling.

“To say that the (existing) terminals on the inner harbor have maxed out their capacity is wrong,” Badger said. “We are constantly looking at berthage, container yards, intermodal transfers and rail capacity to see where there are bottlenecks. We believe ship berths and railway mainline capacity need attention.”

The port is an active player in alleviating rail capacity issues. It has committed to giving up to $50 million toward improving a 46-mile rail access corridor to Deltaport and a neighboring coal terminal at Roberts Bank, and is now focusing on rail service to the north shore of the inner harbor.

The port’s contribution toward a $360 million program to improve the Roberts Bank rail access corridor will help pay for road/rail separation projects at nine locations and to the lengthening of three existing sidings to permit roll-by meets of unit trains on the single-track line.

Work is being coordinated by TransLink (The South Coast British Columbia Transit Authority) and is due to be completed in 2014.

Analysis of the rail situation on the north shore is concerned chiefly with trackage west of a Canadian National Railway lift bridge to the south shore. Terminals in the study area handle more than 30 percent of Vancouver's freight. This cargo contribution is valued at $6 billion a year and includes coal, grain, potash, minerals, sulphur and forest products.

Vancouver did a similar analysis as a prelude to the agreement on upgrading the Roberts Bank rail-access corridor.

In a companion study to its examination of north shore rail needs, Vancouver is considering possible capacity issues between the CN lift bridge and the carrier's sprawling Thornton yard on the south bank of the Fraser River. South of a tunnel, which connects with the lift bridge, CN uses BNSF Railway trackage to reach its own crossing of the Fraser River at New Westminster.

The New Westminster railway bridge, which opened in 1903, is costly to maintain, restricts trains to a speed of 11 mph and is expected to reach its capacity limit of 65 trains a day by 2010.

The cost of replacing the New Westminster railway bridge with either a modern crossing or a tunnel is so high that it has been excluded from consideration by Vancouver and awaits federal involvement in tackling the chokepoint.

http://www.pacificshipper.com/news/a...ype=west_coast