A little over a month into the 2016 shipping season, the Thunder Bay Port Authority has good reason to celebrate. In a press release issued May 3rd, Port Authority C.E.O Tim Heney signed off on the good news: shipping traffic is up 11% from this time last year.
Citing an early start to the season, the release boasts 850 000 metric tonnes in shipments from March 26th to April 30th. This total is not only 11% over this time in 2015, it’s also 20% higher than the five year average.
Heney credits strong grain shipments and an early start to the season for the success thus far. Ice cover on Lake Superior is not as thick as recent years: the season opened in April of 2014 and 2015, instead of March. Because the ice cover was substantially reduced this year, vessels arrived earlier and shipping flow was steady. The release indicated that previous years’ late starts to the season resulted in a “surge” of vessels arriving all at once after being delayed by ice cover.
The release also provided an update on Keefer Terminal activity, which started in April. Last year the terminal experienced its highest number of project and general cargo shipments and this trend is expected to continue. The first shipment out held crane parts transiting from Alberta to Europe.
The release includes a short statistical page, showing that there have been more ships into port this year than last – 32 domestic freighters (‘lakers’), over 27 this time last year. International freighters, or ‘salties’, show a marginal increase with 7 this year versus 6 last year.
To see the full release, click here.