Port of Churchill ready to load two ships with grain

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This article was published 05/08/2017 (2997 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Port of Churchill should have little trouble staffing its grain terminal to load a pair of ships with grain this summer.

The grain was delivered in 2015 for shipment in 2016 before the port was shut down.

“They still have the terminal workers available, and the Canadian Grain Commission will have to certify the grade and weight of the grain,” said Sinclair Harrison, past president of the Hudson Bay Route Association.

More than 90 full-time jobs have been lost in the past 15 months. First the port closed in 2016 and then the Hudson Bay Railway closed in the spring, the town said in a press release.

“There are people looking for jobs,” Harrison said.

The grain is at the end of its life cycle and must be shipped.

“We’ve known that this has been an issue for over a year, and I guess they’ve finally made an arrangement to get the grain out of there,” Harrison said.

The grain is owned by Providence Grain Group of Alberta, which intends to hire one or two ships to transport the 27,000 tonnes of wheat and durum semolina.

Port of Churchill owner Omnitrax has given permission to reopen the terminal for the shipments, the first out of Churchill in two years, and is responsible for loading the grain.

“Hudson Bay Port Corp. has been working with Providence for a number of weeks to clean their grain and to ready the terminal for this export shipment,” Omnitrax said in a statement.

Mayor Mike Spence said a skeleton staff has been keeping the port facilities in working order. He said the shipment demonstrates the port facilities are still viable.

“It’s not old technology. They keep it going. The machines are kept up,” he said. He added more freight could be going to the Kivalliq region if the rail line was reopened.

The rail line was closed in May after flooding damaged the track north of Gillam. Ottawa insists Omnitrax must repair the rail line, but Omnitrax refuses.

Harrison of the Hudson Bay Route Association said the agreement between Omnitrax and the federal government clearly spells out that Omnitrax is responsible for repairing the track.

“It’s pretty black and white. It’s not grey,” he said.