Fairview Terminal's Phase Two expansion reaches the three quarter turn, with finish line in sight

The Prince Rupert Port Authority offered an update to the progress of the Fairview Container Terminal Expansion project on Monday, with an information release that noted that the Phase Two expansion was now 75 per cent complete, with the additional capacity to the east expected to be in operation by the third quarter of 2017.

Don Krusel the Port of Prince Rupert President and CEO made note of the the milestone and how it continues to showcase the Port's capabilities on the west coast.

“Prince Rupert’s container business has experienced rapid growth since the opening of Fairview Container Terminal. This project is the continued evolution of our fast and reliable trans-Pacific service,” ...  “The expansion of our intermodal operations answers growing interest from North American shippers that are capitalizing on the Prince Rupert advantage.”

In addition to the shoreline dock facility for a second berth, on dock rail capacity will also be expanded through a densification of the current track configuration and supported by a rubber tired gantry crane operation.

The port is also reclaiming land to further expand the container yard on site at Fairview.

Fairview Terminal's  Phase Two Expansion
work is now at 75% complete 
(photo from Hellenic Shipping News)

The next significant milestone for the expansion project comes in March of 2017, with the arrival of three Malacca-max dock gantry cranes to make Prince Rupert ready to accept the largest vessels in the word.

The three new cranes will have a reach of 25 containers wide and will add to the reputation of the port to stand ready receive cargo from vessels that are capable of carrying 20,000 plus TEU's.

A look at how the Malacca-max Cranes (named after the vessels that can travel the straits in Southeast Asia) are changing the nature of global shipping, as well as a few notes that caution that the changeover may be a bit down the road yet can be found below:

How much bigger can container ships get?
A quarter of a mile long and arriving here now - the world's biggest ship docks in Britain
Mega ship arrives at Port of L.A.
Whither the Malaccamax?

The full overview of the evolution of the project including more comments from project partner DP World can be found here.

You can learn more about the history of the Phase Two expansion process from this item from the Prince Rupert Port Authority website.

More items of interest related to the Prince Rupert Port Authority can be found here, while more background on Fairview Terminal can be found on our archive page.