While all but one terminal within the Port of Prince Rupert experienced increases in the amount of products moved last month, there was a minuscule decline in tonnage in the first quarter of the year.
All together, there was an increase of nearly nine per cent in the total tonnage handled by Prince Rupert operations last month when compared to numbers from March 2014. Still, just under half a per cent less was moved in the first part of the year than there was in 2014.
In addition to the announcement of its expansion, there was more good news coming from Fairview Container Terminal in March.
Last month, the facility handled 68,964 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), up from 43,451 TEUs in March 2014, or by 58.7 per cent. In the first quarter of the year 185,664.5 TEUs passed through Fairview, an increase of 44.6 per cent from 128,368.75 TEUs in the first three months of 2014.
Last month there was 57 per cent more TEUs imported into Fairview Container Terminal than in March 2014, with 37,960.75 TEUs coming through last month compared to 24,125 TEUs in March 2014. By March’s end, there had been 36 per cent more imports at Fairview than in the same time period of 2014.
There was also a gain of nearly 60.5 per cent in exports, with 31,003.25 TEUs going through Fairview last month in contrast to 19,326.5 TEUs last March. This consisted of nearly 26 per cent more loaded TEUs leaving Canada through Fairview, and more than 166 per cent empty TEUs. In the first three months of the year, Fairview had nearly 57.7 per cent more exports.
Last month Westview Terminal saw a massive spike in tonnage of just over 113 per cent, jumping from 28,145 in March 2014 to 60,000 tons. In the first quarter of 2015, Westview Terminal moved nearly 141,606.4 tons, 27.2 per cent more than the 111,329 tonnes it moved in the same time period of 2014.
There was 52.6 per cent more logs going through the harbour this March compared to last, totalling 68,964 tonnes last month in contrast to 45,186 in March 2014. By the end of last month, 144,103 tonnes of product went through the harbour, up nearly 16 per cent from the 124,423 tonnes handled in the first quarter of 2014.
Prince Rupert Grain also saw gains, handling 600,205 tonnes, or 20 per cent more than March 2014’s total of nearly 500,080. In the first quarter of the year, Prince Rupert Grain experienced an increase of just under 19 per cent, jumping from 1,357,357.3 to 1,612,104.27 tonnes.
The only operation within the Port of Prince Rupert that saw a drop in tonnage was Ridley Terminals Inc. In March, 408,620 tonnes was at the terminal, 39.3 per cent less than the 673,391 tonnes handled in March 2014. In the first quarter of 2015, Ridley Terminals Inc. saw a tonnage decline of 43 per cent, Still, the operations handled an impressive 1,162,930 tonnes in the first part of 2015 compared to 2,042,545 in 2014.
In the first quarter 2015, 4,920,324.6 tonnes of product passed through Prince Rupert, down from the 4,922,453.8 tonnes in the first quarter of 2014.