Port Saint John capacity rises with huge new cranes

The Port of Saint John took a big step this week toward attracting a new generation of super-sized container ships, with the start of a major five-year upgrade.

Two huge cranes floated into port on a modified cargo ship from Charleston, S.C. The blue behemoths will form the backbone of an expanded Rodney Terminal, and Port Saint John CEO Jim Quinn couldn't be happier.

"They're nine metres farther up," says Quinn, "they can reach out nine metres farther, and we've had a challenge here as our business has increased and vessel size has increased, that when larger ships come in here today at high water, the old cranes weren't able to work them right away. They had to wait for the tide to go down."

The cranes are "post-Panamax" size, built taller and with a longer boom, enabling them to safely reach across the decks of larger container ships designed to carry more cargo through the locks of the Panama Canal. Those ships can carry up to 6,500 20-foot containers, a huge jump over the 3,500-container capacity of the largest ships currently calling at Saint John.

"That's the way the world is going, ships are getting larger, so that concentration of cargo on these larger ships has to be worked without delay," says Quinn.

30-year management deal

The cranes are the first instalment by DP World, the Dubai-based port operator that will manage Rodney Terminal for the next 30 years beginning in January. It is the fourth-largest port operator in the world, and Quinn says Saint John will be its only Atlantic port in North America.

"They concentrate on terminals, that's their business. They've got a track record of going into ports and causing business to increase because of the work that they do in unison with the port's efforts."

• Port Saint John signs lease with DP World for west side terminal 
• Port Saint John gets $68M from Ottawa to upgrade container terminals

Those efforts include a $205 million government-funded expansion to add nearly 300 metres to the West Side wharf, allowing larger vessels to berth there and more space to land containers. That work begins in a year with completion scheduled for 2021, when Quinn expects to see two more of DP World's big blue cranes arrive, allowing the port to almost triple the number of containers it can handle to about 330,000 a year. The knock-on economic effect, says Quinn, should be dramatic.

More rail service likely

"I think you're going to see a larger workforce here in the port, not only with respect to our longshoremen who are amongst the best in the world, but you're also going to see things increase in terms of hours for pilots, you're going to see hours increase for the tug services that are provided here, you're going to see trucking services enhanced."   

Rail service is expected to grow too, with Quinn hinting at a hoped-for revitalization of the Canadian Pacific freight service through the U.S. to Montreal.

"You're going to see more regular rail service with respect to containers but a rail service that goes not only up through CN but across the United States and back into Canada near Montreal."

For now, the big blue cranes will be mostly idle while they undergo commissioning and operator training. Come January they'll enter service while their smaller orange cousins, now nearly 50 years old, will be scissored into five-foot sections and sent to the nearby American Metal scrapyard.