Prince Rupert, B.C. – An milestone was reached in the continuing expansion of Prince Rupert’s Fairview Container Terminal over the weekend.
On Saturday, a team of BC Coast Marine Pilots guided the heavy load carrier Ship Zhen Hua 25 and three gantry cranes into Prince Rupert Harbour.
Michael Gurney, corporate communications manager at the Prince Rupert Port Authority, says the offloading process is expected to take another week noting “it will further enhance Prince Rupert ‘s reputation as big ship ready.”
He adds the cranes are equipped with a horizontal reach of 25 containers and can work with the largest ships in the world.
“What this means is that first of all the Port of Prince Rupert can handle the biggest container ships in the industry. There’s now no limitation to the size of the container ships that can come along side Fairview Terminals,” says Gurney.
“At the same time, once this expansion is complete, we’ll be able to serve two container vessels simultaneously. Of course there will be a corresponding increase in efficiency as part of the expansion of the terminal itself has been storage space for the containers which allows us to process them more efficiently as they move from rail to ship.”
He says that means more jobs (possibly 100 or more new longshoreman positions), more attractive options for shippers and carriers and more efficiency at the terminal.
Once expansion is complete sometime between August and October (mainly surfacing of the terminal and a lot of utility work like hooking up all the connections that make the systems work), he sayss the capacity of Fairview Terminal will increase by half-a-million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), boosting its total capacity from 850,000 to 1.35 million TEUs.