It takes a team to bring in the potash crop for Rupert

They are spreading around the credit this weekend as Prince Rupert celebrates its winning of the Potash derby, with Canpotex selecting Ridley Island as one of their two key locations in British Columbia for shipping potash to Asia.

The 300 million dollar terminal for Prince Rupert came about because of the "teamwork" exhibited by First Nations and Canadian National, that according to Dale MacLean who praised their assistance in landing the multi million dollar deal last week.

The Daily News featured the story as their front page article in Friday's paper.

'RIDLEY'S $300M TERMINAL WON THANKS TO TEAM WORK
Chair of port board praises First Nations and CN Rail for being supportive of project
BY LEANNE RITCHIE
The Daily News
Friday, June 27, 2008
Pages one and two

The ability to place a competitive bid before Canpotex for a new potash terminal was only possible with the help of the Coast Tsimshian and neighbouring First Nations, said the chair of the board of the Prince Rupert Port Authority (PRPA.)

Speaking at the PRPA Annual General Meeting yesterday, Dale MacLean said the announcement by Canpotex to site one of two new terminals on a 100-acre site on Ridley Island came after nine months of hard work.

This included visits by the Coast Tsimshian (Metlakatla and Lax Kw'alaams) as well as Gitxaala, Kitselas and Kitsumkalum to Canpotex's Saskatchewan operations

"When you look at the people that were involved, the organization and the partners, it's only appropriate to express thanks and appreciation to CN Rail and the Coast Tsimshian who collectively went with the PRPA as a unified team, presented a strategy and a competitive framework to Canpotex that surely demonstrated the viability of Prince Rupert and the advantages that this truly has to offer and can bring to Canadian exporters," said MacLean.

"When you see that kind of community come together, it only speaks to one thing, that's strength, it talks about commitment and it sets the stage for future growth."

The PRPA and CN still have to finalize commercial agreements with Canpotex; however the board of Canpotex has ended the site selection process, confirming its decision to go with Ridley Island and a site next to the existing Neptune Terminals in North Vancouver. The PRPA was competing with other ports for the new site, including Cherry Point, Washington.

Canpotex, which acts as the export agency for three potash producers including Agrium, Inc., Mosaic Co. and the Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, is looking to double its export capacity from 12 million to 23 million tonnes annually by 2012. Prices for the key ingredient in fertilizer has tripled in the past year as worldwide demand for potash has grown.

The new capacity will be split roughly 50/50 between Vancouver and Prince Rupert, with the Ridley terminal representing about a $300 million investment. Canpotex chose Prince Rupert largely for its direct connection to customers - it's a shorter ocean trip to Asia than from more southerly ports. And it's also a speedy link by train with potash producers in Saskatchewan.

And the relationship built between the Coast Tsimshian and the company did play an important role in the decision, said Jon Somers, vice president of planning and development for Canpotex.

"We'd like to say in a very positive way that we at Canpotex reciprocated with a visit probably a month and a half ago to Prince Rupert, meeting with the chiefs of the five bands - Lax Kw'alaams and Metlakatla as well as Kitselas, Kitsumkalum and Gitxaala," said Somers.

"We are very pleased to say we have made substantial progress and commitment to recognizing our potential engagements with their communities and their culture and vice versa to their supporting our project."

The timeline to develop the new terminal extends through the next three years, which gives all parties involved time to determine the exact nature of economic development opportunities related to the project.

Although the engineering and technical work is still being completed, Somers said the plan is to develop what he called "a traditional style terminal."

"You will have a rail track that leads on to the island as part of the existing CN service and then you'll have a storage shed. Potash has to be stored in doors, unlike the coal pile at Ridley. You will have a dumper pit where cars will dump the product and then a long conveyor system running to a berth in the water, running adjacent to the coal terminal," he said.

Similar again to the coal terminal, there will be large ocean-going vessels coming in and loading up to a capacity of 180,000 tonnes in the future and then turning around and heading off to Asia.
Canpotex leases its own fleet of 5,500 specially designed covered potash railcars.

"We have a preliminary engineering study that has been done and running concurrently with our negotiations most likely we will be doing further detailed engineering, assessing the land from a geotechnical perspective ... making sure the land is suitable to build on, which we believe it is."

At this point in time, Canpotex is unsure just how many jobs will be involved in terminal operations; however they estimate about 250 construction jobs will be generated during peak periods.

"Moving forward, it's a bit difficult to say at this point about employment because we haven't determined how the facility will be run ... suffice to say it will be a traditional bulk terminal manning model," said Somers.

However, the hard work ahead on reaching commercial agreements and forging new elationships did not put a dampener on the spirits at yesterdays AGM. For MacLean, a potash terminal is another way to develop and stabilize the future of the PRPA and the communities.

"It's another critical building block that will add to the diversity of the port," he said.