Heavy lifting

The addition next fall of a $3 million mobile harbour crane should open up plenty of business opportunities for the Thunder Bay Port Authority, says the organization’s CEO.

Tim Heney said the machine, designed specifically to unload vessels, is something the port has never had in the past, but has been sorely missing in Thunder Bay.

“It’s going to be the most versatile machine we can acquire,” Heney said. “There is no machine like this at the head of Lake Superior. It’s going to provide us the capability to unload ships that don’t have cranes on them. It will be efficient for bulk unloading which we’ve never had at the port.”

It will also allow the local port to diversify. Heney added that with tonnage numbers dropping steadily, the central Canadian location still makes it an ideal gateway to western Canada.

“The project cargo business we started six years ago has been growing exponentially. We’ve really developed a corridor for project cargo to western Canada. This doesn’t just serve the region. It serves the west as well.

“We can load directly to both railroads with this machine. And we think there’s an exponential amount of business out there to get. And we need that inbound cargo to provide the ships for grain back haul. So it has a two-way win for the port. Those ocean vessels coming in will take grain directly from Thunder Bay back to Europe.”

About a third of the cost of the crane, or $1 million, was provided through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation.  The crane will be capable of lifting 84 tonnes and can move along the wharf to service any ship berthed at the port.

MPP Michael Gravelle (Lib., Thunder Bay-Superior North), who earlier this year helped launch the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario, said the funding is a perfect fit for the province’s transportation modality plan, a vision that includes road, rail, air and marine plans working synergistically together.

“This is a really good example of how this fits within our strategy on the growth plan. But in the meantime we’re able to support projects just like this that obviously are bringing more employment to the port, but most of all are bringing great economic activity to Thunder Bay and making it easier for them to bring in more business,” Gravelle said.

The addition of the crane is expected to create three full-time jobs, complementing the 20 workers already employed by the Port Authority.