A Sulphuric Ghost to come to life?

It was abandoned back in 2001, 20% away from completion, left to sit along the Ridley Island shoreline as a testimony to what might have been. But suddenly, it seems that the Sulphur handling facility may jump back to life.

With Mysterious black rail cars appearing on Ridley Island sidings, many local observers believe that the days of shipping sulphur product through the RTI port is just around the corner. Tantalizing hints are being dropped by RTI as they say that yes a deal has been signed with an un-named company, but they won’t confirm anything until that company decides to make an announcement.

The Suggestion in the Daily News points towards a company known as ICEC, as the possible partner. An international company that is linked with CN Rail, which as we all know by now, has a large presence and interest in the Port of Prince Rupert.

The Daily News traces all the industrial intrigue in its Thursday front page story.

SULPHUR ON TRACK FOR NEW START AT RIDLEY
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, September 7, 2006
Pages One and Five

Ridley Terminals has signed a long term agreement to ship sulphur pellets through its bulk handling facility, but the company that is shipping the product has yet to identify itself publicly.

“Yes, we have signed an agreement with a partner but that’s a partner still to be named. I think we should learn about that soon enough,” said Greg Slocombe, president and chief operating officer of Ridley Terminals Inc.

“I’m really waiting for the partner to make an announcement. Until they come out and make an official statement, I don’t wan to say anything.”

Speculation has been rife in the community about sulphur handling at the facility, especially since the black rail cars, that could be used to ship sulphur among other things, have been parked near the never-used sulphur-handling facility.

“They were owned by the partner that we have with respect to the sulphur business we will be entering in to, but these are not necessarily the cars that would be used in our service. They are just being stored here,” said Slocombe.

And clearly, those cars do not line up with existing sulphur handling equipment on site.

“Most people have noticed that,” said Slocombe.

The sulphur handling facility at Ridley was built back in 2001 but has never been used and it’s only about 80 per cent complete.

Although management at Ridley aren’t tipping their hand, it is widely believed that one potential exporter could be ICEC (the International Commodities Export Company) and CN Rail.

Back in October 2005, when the federal Liberal government said it was going to sell the terminal to a private concern, ICEC, a global leader in the international marketing of fertilizer and fertilizer raw materials, was among those fighting to keep the company open and accessible to all of Canada’s bulk export producers.

And, at the Standing Committee on Transport, Conservative MP Jim Gouk also fought on several occasions with his Liberal counterparts about the sale of Ridley Terminals because of its impact on the CN-ICEC sulphur partnership.

ICEC acts as a international marketer of fertilizer and fertilizer raw materials and has some 20 offices around the globe, with major operations in Crossfield, Alberta, Brazil and Tengiz, Kazakhstan.

Gouk was the at the time concerned the two companies would choose a terminal in the United States if Ridley was handed over to a private buyer.

However, after the Conservatives won the last federal election, they cancelled the sale and freed Ridley Terminals to sign long-term contracts with exporters.

Ridley management has been trying to diversify the products handled at the terminal for the past several years, ever since a downturn in the coal market resulted in a termination of coal shipments in 2003 and left the company in the red.

Sulphur is best known by the public in its pellet form as seen in large yellow piles at ports in the Lower Mainland.

The $60 million sulphur facility at Ridley was a project of the Sulphur Corporation of Canada, (SCC). It was never completed and the project was eventually handed over to Ridley Terminals.

SCC was planning on handling both liquid sulphur, which would be stored in large tanks as well as formed sulphur, similar to the solid product now exported from the port of Vancouver.

However, the project was derailed after SCC filed for bankruptcy protection. It owed $29 million in debt, some of which was owed to Prince Rupert contractors.

Proprietary Industries, a merchant bank which owned as much as 79 per cent of SCC, was also called before the Ontario and Alberta Securities Commissions for “accounting regularities.”

Proprietary was not able to resume trading on the Toronto and Swiss Stock exchanges until May 19, 2004, after the B. C., Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec Securities Exchange Commissions lifted their cease-trading orders.