Full capacity within the first week of operations

There hasn't been one container land ashore here yet and already the Fairview Container Port is being talked about as a key transportation link for North America.

The National Post examined the potential for the port and found that CN Rail is of the belief that the port will be working at full capacity within weeks of opening day. With importers and exporters alike anxious for the day when North America ships through Prince Rupert.

From Alaska fish processors to Wisconsin lumber mills and a variety of other industries across North America, the opportunity that a new port and two less days of shipping time provide is proving to be a major selling point for Fairview.

Cost, time and lack of congestion are proving to be fairly attractive lures in the world of international shipping, an advantage that should help spur on development of further phases of Fairview in a very short order. Providing the current controversy with the Coastal First Nations is resolved to the benefit of all.

There are apparently lots of eyes watching the progress of the port and where it will be by October, ready to take advantage of what the port has to offer and to help build Fairview into a major player on the West coast of North America.

U.S. industries boost Prince Rupert port
Cost, time benefits outweigh other West Coast ports
Nathan Vanderklippe
Financial Post
Friday, June 01, 2007

VANCOUVER - Alaska's salmon fisheries and Wisconsin's paper mills share neither geography, markets nor climate, but they do both hold an interest in selling their goods to the voracious Asian market.

And, as they have recently discovered, they share something else: an attraction to the wild northern coast of British Columbia, where the small town of Prince Rupert is building what it calls "the new world port."

Located two days' sailing closer to Asia than some ports on the U.S. West Coast -- and next door to Alaska's legendary ocean catches -- the town has stirred the global ambitions of its neighbours.

"I see it as Alaska's best bet to be competitive in world markets," said Mike Round, whose Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association runs salmon hatcheries and processing plants in nearby Ketchikan, Alaska.

"It's a huge opportunity," Mr. Round said.

Using Prince Rupert, Ketchikan could deliver its salmon to Chicago fish stands in the same time it now takes them to float the 1,100 kilometres to Seattle, from where they are currently shipped for delivery to both Asia and the lower 48 states.

"It's the equivalent of having [Seattle's] Tacoma [port] move within 60 miles [96 kilometres] of Ketchikan as far as shipping goes," said Mr. Round.

He is hardly the only American drawn to the upstart port, which has completed 80% of the construction of its new $170- million container terminal and expects to begin operations in October.

The port has attracted so much interest that Canadian National Railway Co., which is funding part of the new terminal and has marketed it to the continent's largest retailers --including Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe's and Home Depot -- expects it will run at full capacity within its first week of operations.

"All of them are saying that they want to be part of this project," said Doug Hayden-Luk, CN's direct of intermodal sales.

At the same time, Canadian First Nations opposition to the container terminal hardened on Wednesday when a federal court ruled that local aboriginal groups who claim title to the land beneath the new terminal were inadequately consulted before construction began.

That ruling creates a "meaningful possibility" that the container terminal will not be allowed to proceed "and it also requires them to start looking at different levels of economic options," said Greg McDade, who represents Prince Rupert's Coast Tsimshian peoples.

The project is currently mired in four judicial reviews and local First Nations have pledged that unless they are satisfied, "they're not going to allow the port to operate. The port is expending construction dollars at its own risk," Mr. McDade said.

The threat of aboriginal unrest has grown so real that a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group listed it as a key reason why Prince Rupert is "unlikely to succeed as a popular alternative to existing ports" -- although the report's authors write that "under the right circumstances" it has the potential to develop into a mammoth five million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) facility.

The port's backers, most notably New Jersey-based Maher Terminals, which will operate the new facility, remain so optimistic they have already drawn plans for a $600-million second phase that would quadruple its capacity to 2-million TEUs per year. Construction could start as early as mid-2008.

China's largest steamship company, COSCO Container Lines, has already agreed to weekly calls at the port once the new terminal opens, and port officials expect at least one other major ocean carrier to sign on in the near future. CN confirmed that it is planning to deliver Asian-made goods from Prince Rupert to distribution centres for Ashley Furniture and Menards hardware stores, indicating that some major U.S. retailers have already signed shipping agreements with COSCO.

"The project's much more than just a terminal development at the Port of Prince Rupert. It's effectively opening up a new corridor," said Shaun Stevenson, the port's vice-president of marketing and business development.

The CN line from Prince Rupert is less congested and faster than lines from major U.S. West Coast ports, meaning goods can make the longer trip from northern B.C. in the same time or faster than through traditional routes, some of which don't service parts of the American Midwest.

For that reason, it has stirred considerable interest in states like Tennessee and Wisconsin, whose territory is crossed by CN rails and who see the new container terminal as their gateway to the Far East.

Wisconsin, for example, leads the U.S. in paper output and also has significant machinery and agricultural production, but "has always been bypassed on the Pacific trade routes because most of the container rail goes south of Wisconsin into Chicago over Union Pacific lines. We now have major container traffic route that will literally cut diagonally across the state," said David Ward, the president of the Madison, Wisc.-based consulting firm NorthStar Economics.

nvanderklippe@nationalpost.com