Port progress being made

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This article was published 11/07/2023 (1052 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The shipping season at the Port of Churchill is about to begin, and while this year is not expected to be the break-out year many are hoping for one day, important progress is being made.

Despite periodic outbursts of advocacy from politicians in Western Canada about increasing international cargo business from the port, the main focus of development this year is the repair of the rail lines.

Michael Woelcke, the CEO of Arctic Gateway Group (AGG) , the Indigenous-owned company that owns the port and the Hudson Bay Railway, said about $40 million worth of repair work is being done this year after a similar amount of work was done last year.

He confirmed that just like last year three trips from a 35,000 tonne vessel are scheduled to depart the Port of Churchill this year carrying re-supply goods to Nunavut communities in the Kivalliq region on the west coast of Hudson Bay.

But he said this year those ships will load about 33 per cent more cargo from Churchill.

The Kivalliq re-supply business – as opposed to trans-Atlantic cargo business — is seen as a more immediate opportunity for the port.

“We’re quite excited about that opportunity,” Woelcke said.

That business is handled by ships and shippers out of Montreal, but Woelcke said AGG is talking with folks in Kivalliq about the potential to develop a tug and barge operation to service to those communities.

In the meantime, the port will be the site of an event that hasn’t occurred there for more than two decades – the arrival of a cruise ship with about 250 passengers and crew on July 16.

It’s the scheduled end of one cruise and the beginning of another, so it is expected to be a busy day in Churchill with 500 people coming and going which will total more than half of the permanent population in the town.

The ship, the Silver Endeavour, is owned by Monaco-based Silversea which is part of the Royal Caribbean Group.

While Woelcke did acknowledge that ocean-going cargo ships are expected this year – there were none last year – he said they are still in the discussion phase with interested parties.

“We have had inquiries about shipping minerals and other commodities,” he said.

He suggested that some of that interest may be prompted by the fact the Port of Vancouver has been shut down since July 1 because of a strike by 7,400 longshoremen.

While it is still not certain if that shutdown will spur any new shippers to use the Port of Churchill, it underlines the potential the port has.

Chuck Davidson, CEO of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce and a long-time advocate for economic development in Northern Manitoba, said there are lots of conversations going on right now about ways to utilize the port to a greater extent than it has in the past number of years.

“What you are seeing is that those other ports are at or near capacity,” he said.

As that the west coast strike is creating a growing bottleneck, AGG is investing in shoring up the rail line which will mean greater reliability, something that was missing in the past. Davidson said was one of the reasons international shippers have regularly decided to forego Churchill despite the fact that shipping from Churchill to Europe is quicker than using Montreal, for instance.

“If you don’t have that reliability than it makes more sense to use ports in Vancouver or Montreal or Thunder Bay,” he said.

In 2016, the former owner of the port and the rail line suspended business and then shut it down completely when bad weather washed out part of the rail line and the company refused to do the repair work necessary.

Since then AGG’s owner called OneNorth, has successfully raised about $133 million from the federal and provincial governments to get the repairs done.

“That’s always been considered to be the first order of business,” Davidson said.

Woelcke said investment at the port will be necessary to increase capacity, but before any investment is made he said the company has to have greater clarity about the type of business that will be done.

For instance the kind of storage facilities that the port will need will depend on the commodities being shipped.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca