A Montreal logistics firm specializing in loading pulses and grains into containers for export out of Vancouver and Montreal plans to set up shop at Prince Rupert.
The Prince Rupert Port Authority on Monday announced Ray-Mont Logistics is developing a logistics and container loading facility at the south end of the West Coast port’s Ridley Island site, to export crops in ocean containers by way of Prince Rupert’s Fairview Container Terminal.
The Fairview terminal is already in the midst of an expansion, due to be completed in August, meant to boost its annual volumes to 1.3 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from 850,000 currently, the port authority said in a release.
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The Ray-Mont operation is expected to handle lentils, peas, beans, soybeans, flax, wheat and other crops, railed in via hopper car from Western and central Canada and the U.S. Midwest.
Ray-Mont’s 10-acre facility, when complete, is expected to employ about 40 people and is to include a rail loop corridor with capacity for over 100 rail cars plus a grain dumper pit.
“Agricultural shippers” in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and “further inland” are expected to send crops via rail to the Ray-Mont site, where they would be unloaded and transferred to containers using a conveyor system.
Contractors are expected to start clearing the site this week at Ridley Island to have the new facility up and running this fall for the 2017-18 crop year, the port authority said.
Ray-Mont, which already operates a Montreal terminal with a 32-car rail siding, said on its website it also has “expansion plans in the works” at its Vancouver port terminal, which today includes a 40-car rail siding.
Overall, the port authority said, Montreal-based Ray-Mont already handles about 70,000 TEUs from North America per year. — AGCanada.com Network
