A huge month in performance by Ridley Coal Terminal in November has given the terminal the cargo numbers needed to outpace last year’s year-to-date total performance statistics.
It’s a turnaround from a terminal suffering from an over-saturation of supply in the world’s coal market and a decrease in demand and prices, leading to cargo tonnage decreases.
This past November, the coal terminal handled 643,787 tonnes of coal, compared to 206,427 tonnes in November 2015 – a 68 per cent increase. It comes on the heels of a tonnage drop in October.
Year-to-date (YTD), the coal terminal has handled 4,124,304 tonnes of cargo in 2016, a 7,119 tonne increase from the same time in 2015. By this point in 2015, the terminal was down in cargo volumes by more than 200,000 tonnes over 2014.
Outside of the Ridley Coal Terminal, the Westview Wood Pellet Terminal also noted a large increase in performance statistics, handling 85,942 tonnes of cargo in November – a 41 per cent increase from 2015 when the terminal handled 50,925 tonnes.
The harbour and Alaska Marine Highway also saw elevated numbers, with the harbour pulling in 28,420 tonnes handled in November, compared to 13,490 in November 2015, and the Alaska Marine Highway terminal handled 181 tonnes, up from 162 in 2015.
Seeing slight decreases were the Fairview Container Terminal and the Prince Rupert Grain Terminal. Workers at Fairview handled 495,210 tonnes in November, a 17 per cent decrease from a year prior. The grain terminal had 658,178 tonnes of cargo pass through, a seven per cent drop from 2015’s totals.
CN Rail handled 2,159 tonnes of cargo, compared to November 2015’s 6,429.
Domestic passenger traffic increased at the port, with 3,062 bodies passing in and out of the gates (101 more than a year prior), while traffic also increased with foreign passenger numbers (329) compared to the same time in 2015 (250).
View a video on the port’s 2016 performance summary at www.thenorthernview.com