Kitimat to study the possibility of creating a bulk port

While Prince Rupert dreams the dream of containers lining the shores awaiting transport, down the coast and up the highway the folks in Kitimat are doing a little dreaming of their own.

Kitimat has received $200,000 dollars from the Provincial Government to go towards the $774,000 cost of a study into the feasibility of creating a bulk port in Alcan city.

At one time of course Prince Rupert was a bulk port, the Fairview port site was the shipping point for many of those same articles that Kitimat wishes to now welcome to their city. The Fairview operation here struggled a fair amount before being reborn as the Container project, so it will be interesting to see what the success possibilities for the same type of port in Kitimat may hold. Then again with the world attention that the Fairview Container Port will receive, perhaps for Kitimat it will all be about the timing!

A bulk port would accept and ship those items that can't be put into the containers that soon will arrive on the North coast, items such as lumber, pulp and paper, wood pellets, automobiles and such.

The Terrace Standard has a complete report on the plan being championed by Roger Harris to get Kitimat and Terrace firmly entrenched into the world of international shipping.


Proposed Bulk Port to benefit Terrace
By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN
Terrace Standard
July 12 2006

LOCAL business people are excited about the prospect of developing a break bulk port facility in Kitimat, because it could mean economic spin-offs in Terrace.

Last week Premier Gordon Campbell was in Kitimat to announce a provincial contribution of $200,000 to help pay for a $774,000 study on the benefits of developing a break bulk port in Kitimat.

A break bulk port would be responsible for transporting large items that can't be accommodated in shipping containers via the Prince Rupert container port.

That includes items such as lumber, pulp and paper, wood pellets, steel, automobiles and other bulk products.

"I think this is an especially important announcement for Terrace because it clearly makes us the gateway to the Port of Kitimat and Prince Rupert in the movement of anything whether it goes in containers or not," says Roger Harris, the interim executive director of the newly formed Kitimaat Port Development Society, which will lead the study.

The society is made up of members of the Haisla Nation, Alcan Inc. and members of the K.T. Industrial Development Society and it has already been researching the proposal for some time and there is already significant interest from major corporations.

Executives from companies such as CN, Washington Marine Group, Enbridge, Encana, Greer Shipping and others joined officials from the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, the City of Terrace and members of the Haisla and other aboriginal groupsfor the announcement.

"This isn't a case of them coming to us and saying with our brains and your money we can make beautiful music together," said Premier Gordon Campbell, adding the presence of dozens of senior executives shows there is serious interest from the private sector in seeing such a facility come to fruition.

"We had 45 people who don't live here telling us this is a great place to invest," Harris says. "I think now what you are going to see from a shipper and CN's perspective, Terrace is the place where trains will come in and part of the product will end up in Kitimat and part of the product will go to Prince Rupert."

Campbell says the development of a break bulk port in Kitimat is not just a regional or even provincial initiative, but one that affects how and where companies across the country will ship large items to the Asian market.

"This partnership is a major partnership to meet Canada's needs here," he said, adding it could make Kitimat another gateway to the Pacific Rim.

The study will examine potential markets and customers for shipping, establish a business case, look at potential site locations and engineering needs and suggest a management and organizational structure.

Research on the project has been going on for months and last week's announcement demonstrates a will to move forward on a plan that has the potential to create jobs and establish Terrace as something of an inland port to feed the two port cities of Kitimat and Prince Rupert.
That builds on the City of Terrace's desire to develop the airport lands for industrial use.
Developing the port would also dovetail into creating other industry in the area, industries such as wood pellet production.

"It really makes our industrial lands more valuable because we have a low value fibre basket," Harris says. "This port would make pellet production in this part of the world a lot more feasible than it did today."

Terrace has a high percentage of decadent, high pulp quality wood that is suitable for pellet production.

And other business people in the area are excited about the plan.

Local business people such as Lloyd Hull say the port is an indication that diversifying the industry here is critical to stabilizing the local economy.

"It would sure be nice if they put it all together," Hull said. "We definitely have the people here for it, let's hope the north gets a real boost."

Roger Harris says the province's interest in supporting the study shows Terrace and the northwest are an important part of the Asia-Pacific strategy.

"The North Coast of British Columbia is in a unique geographic position, which makes transporting goods to the resource-hungry Asia-Pacific region faster than anywhere else on the continent," said Campbell. "We need to explore every possible opportunity for taking advantage of this geography, and this study will go a long way towards helping us do that."