Delivery Day!

The long anticipated arrival of the first container ship at Fairview Terminal is at hand, in just a few hours, The Antwerp (seen above in Oregon waters) will ease up to the container terminal dock and the process of moving thousands of containers onto rail cars and on to mid America will begin.

The debut of scheduled container service at Fairview has once again sparked a wave of enthusiasm locally, with Mayor Herb Pond dropping tantalizing hints of potential investment tied to the development of container service to the North coast. Pond recounted a recent visit from “a group of serious investors”, which left him very encouraged for future development.

The first containers are set to be unloaded Wednesday morning; setting the scene for what many hope will be better days for Prince Rupert’s economy.

The exuberance over the first delivery was captured on the front page of the Tuesday Daily News.


WAVE OF INTEREST IN PORT SET TO HIT NEW HIGH THIS WEEK
With first container ship about to arrive tomorrow, the world is watching Rupert
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Pages one and three

With the first vessel expected to arrive at Fairview Terminal on Wednesday morning, Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond said the opening of Canada's newest trade corridor continues to attract unprecedented international attention.

Canada's ambassador to Japan visited the city earlier this month to get a look at the new facility. Joseph Caron has been Canada's ambassador since 2005. Prior to that he was ambassador to the People's Republic of China with dual accreditation to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and to Mongolia.

"He said for four or five years he has been a sales booster for the Port of Prince Rupert ... but he really wanted to come see for himself what is going on. He was very impressed and understood completely the advantages of this gateway," said Pond.

"He will be returning to Japan in an even better position to speak confidently about this port."
The Fairview Container Terminal will receive its first ship, COSCO's 5,500 TEU (container units), The Antwerp, for unloading Wednesday morning. According to the Prince Rupert Port Authority's vessel report, The Antwerp is due in the harbour today around 9 p.m.

The city also played host to what Pond described as a "group of serious investors" who have been touring the North looking at different properties.

"While I do have those meetings often and I don't often comment on them, and I always keep their business private, I have got to tell you, it was extremely encouraging. They were very excited about what they saw here," he said. "These were foreign investors with a tremendous amount of clout and have the capacity to carry out any project they put their mind to.

"There's a level of interest in Prince Rupert that continues to rise and we have to take advantage of that."

The new terminal was also highlighted last week for its geographic and intermodal advantages in a report released by the Conference Board of Canada.

Called Addressing the Gaps in the Transportation Network: Seizing Canada's Continental Gateway Advantage, the report lauds Fairview Terminal for choosing intermodal, or ship-to-rail, as its primary form of transport. Shipping companies looking to get their goods to market on time tend to want to avoid the border using trucks because of the bottleneck effect caused by the new passport requirements.

"The companies that expect to use trucks to go in to the U.S. market are going to find that the border congestion becomes to next bottleneck," said Mary Brooks, the chair of commerce at Dalhousie University and report's author, to CanWest News Services last week.

Rail, by comparison, has fewer crossings and the railway companies have invested heavily in recent years in scanning equipment that alleviates the concerns of the U.S.

Geographically, Prince Rupert is two days closer to Shanghai than Los Angeles or Mexico.

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(photo from http://www.pbase.com/pgilston/image/66724845)