Grain latest Port of Churchill shipment

Prairie grain will soon ship out of the Port of Churchill for the first time in at least five years.

Starting Friday, grain will be moved to the northern Manitoba port from The Pas, via the Hudson Bay Railway. Few details were provided Wednesday.

A global agricultural company, based in Canada, will send its grain to international markets via the deep-water port. The first ship should leave Churchill at the end of August or beginning of September, said Chris Avery, president of Arctic Gateway Group, the port’s owner.

Arctic Gateway Group is talking with other companies also looking to ship grain, Avery added.

Grain first shipped through the port as early as the 1930s.

Winnipeg-based Richardson International sent its first round of wheat through the port in 2012, to Colombia. At the time, the federal government offered a $9-per-tonne incentive to ship Prairie grain through Churchill as it sought to drive interest. Money was capped at 500,000 tonnes per year.

Former owner OmniTrax closed the Port of Churchill in 2016, and the Hudson Bay Railway washed out the following year. Arctic Gateway Group and various levels of government have since been working to revitalize the port and rebuild a customer base.

“The Port of Churchill was built as a strategic asset in Canada almost 100 years ago, when grain and agriculture products were our primary export,” Avery said. “(Now) it’s going to move a wide variety of commodities.”

Potash, nickel concentrate and zinc concentrate are slated to leave the Churchill hub this year.

Ottawa’s Major Projects Office continues to look into a port expansion, Avery said. The federal government hasn’t yet listed it as a project of national importance.

— Free Press staff