The pioneer shipping line of the Fairview Container Terminal

The arrival of the Cosco line on the North coast has apparently resulted folks scrambling for a thesaurus, as they line up the glowing endorsements to describe the importance of the shipping line to the North coast.

With such terms as courageous, bold, brilliant and having a pioneering spirit, to name a few, the good vibes were bouncing around the Crest Hotel last Thursday afternoon. As the Cosco Wanhe was finishing off the unloading at Fairview, the good feelings were spreading around the Hotel salon across town.

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At a luncheon to celebrate the shipping line's choice of Prince Rupert as a destination port for their ships, Cosco officials, their guests and stakeholders in the Fairview Operation all joined in to recognize the first couple of successful weeks of containerization on the North Coast.

The Daily News featured details of the overflowing exhilaration in the Friday paper.

'Courageous' COSCO celebrates
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, November 16, 2007
Pages one and three

COSCO invited its partners and supporters to Prince Rupert yesterday to celebrate a historic event - the opening of the first new trade corridor between Asia and North America in 100 years.

"COSCO is the pioneer. This is the first new trade corridor on the Pacific in 100 years and that takes a lot of guts," said Mark Lerner, assistance vice-president with CN Rail. "It's a new supply chain that did not exist until today. When we look back years from now, we will realize the significance of what has been accomplished."

COSCO is the first shipping line to offload containers at the recently opened Fairview Container Terminal The company invited its shippers, such as UPS, Mattel and Ashley Furniture, to help them celebrate the new trade corridor alongside its management teams from China and North America.

"Our vision is clear. We see this Prince Rupert Gateway opening brand new doors to opportunities not only for COSCO but also for our customers and we are confident Prince Rupert will become a strategic harbour in North America," said Sun Jia Kang, president of COSCO, speaking at a lunch at the Crest Hotel yesterday.

"I also believe that is why so many of our customers have travelled so far to be with us today."
COSCO (the China Ocean Shipping Company) is headquartered in Beijing, China, and is one of the world's leading shipping companies.

As representatives from CN Rail, Maher Terminals and the Port of Prince Rupert spoke about the courage of COSCO to take a pioneering role as the first shipper at the new terminal, the last of some 1,700 containers were being loaded on to rail cars in anticipation of making the journey across the continent.

"COSCO's bold decision to be the first to commit to ship through Prince Rupert underscores its commitment to its customers," said Frans van Riemsdyk, senior vice-president of Maher Terminals.

"Shippers throughout North American have been aggressively calling for port diversification for quite some time now, all in order to safeguard the consistent and reliable movement of containers in the face of record growth. The new fast and congestion-free Prince Rupert gateway provides what shippers require - excellent transit times and opportunity to bypass the congestion that has marred other ports and railways."

In the first three visits, vessels and trains have arrived and departed within their scheduled windows and set new records on transit times to Chicago, said van Riemsdyk. The first train set a record of transit time from the West Coast of 92 hours.

"That has a lot of folks in North America with their jaws dropped," he said.
Since the terminal opened three weeks ago, ships have brought a total of 4,000 TEUs to the new port.

The Wanhe, which arrived at Fairview Monday night, is the third vessel to dock at the Fairview Container Terminal. It offloaded products such as machinery, tires, furniture, kitchen appliances, slate, medical supplies, sporting goods, toys, telephone booths, and auto parts heading for the American mid-west market place.

Yesterday, the longest train to date - 11,000 feet - left for the central mid-west behind a new CN Rail engine, specifically purchase for the trade coming from the Fairview Container Terminal.

"It really was tremendous foresight (on COSCO's part,)" said Dale MacLean, chair of the board of the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

"The word that comes to mind is 'courage' - to be the first to sign up and really to be the pioneering spirit in that vision, to be the first shipping line to truly embrace and identify what they have seen as unique strategic advantage."

Its competitors and its customers will view COSCO as a brilliant strategist for being the first to make this move, he said.

Following lunch, the shippers were invited for a tour of the container vessel, the Wanhe, before heading back to Vancouver.