The amount of containers going through the Prince Rupert port is continuing to decline into 2011.
According to the monthly traffic summaries from the Prince Rupert Port Authority, the amount of TEUs (Twenty-foot equivalent unit, or one average sized cargo container) going through the port has been in steady decline since peaking last July at 38,598
TEUs.
Now the numbers for February are out, and it appears the downward trend may be continuing in 2011.
The new numbers show that the decline now means that the amount of containers is down significantly from where it was a year before - falling 33.1 per cent from 27,681.3 to 18,506.3. In February, the port imported 10,557.5 TEUs, a 32.1 per cent decrease from February 2010. The port exported 7,948.8 TEUs, which is a decrease of 34.5 per cent from last year.
The Prince Rupert Grain terminal moved 236,512 tonnes of wheat last month, which was 41.8 per cent less than the amount that was shipped last year. Canola however saw a 3.3 per cent increase to 64,455 tonnes in February. It did however ship 52,100.1 tones of canola meal when it had shipped none in February
2010.
Ridley Terminal saw its shipments of M. Coal go up 75.8 per cent to 503,586 tonnes, while shipments of T. Coal fell 64.5 per cent. Ridley’s shipments of wood pellets decreased 67.8 per cent, and the terminal didn’t ship any petroleum coke at
all, although it shipped nearly 50,000 of it a year
before.
The amount of timber coming out Prince Rupert took a massive
jump from last year with 54,614 logs being exported from the City; an increase of 621.8 per
cent.