Update on Port congestion issues, as Xin Fei Zhou arrives in Prince Rupert for unloading.

The Port of Prince Rupert has provided an up date on congestion issues
and dwell time concerns related to operations at the Fairview Container Terminal
(photo from Port of Prince Rupert website)

A follow up to our story of yesterday about congestion and dwell times at Fairview Terminal and reports of diversions of vessels from the Northwest gateway to Asia.

After inquiries from the North Coast Review a correspondence from the Prince Rupert Port Authority has provided for some background related to the notice from Delmar Logistics from the weekend, which had suggested that a container vessel bound for Prince Rupert was to be diverted.

In their advisory,  the Port notes that the shipping and Logistics company advisory had provided for some mis-information to the current situation, adding that the vessel in question, the Xin Fei Zhou had arrived at Fairivew and is currently being worked by Fairview terminal crews.

According to the Port of Prince Rupert Harbour Operations listings, the COSCO line vessel is expected to remain in port until 4:30 PM on January 31st.

As part of their background for the North Coast Review, the Port also provided a glimpse into some of the issues that the Container Terminal is facing at the moment when it comes to dwell times, as well as to outline some of the steps that they are taking to reduce that issue.

Among their notes:

Prince Rupert’s Fairview Container Terminal is experiencing congestion and higher than normal dwell times. The congestion relates to continued record container volumes, and service interruptions experienced over the past month. 

 Recovery has been hampered by the winter operating challenges facing the entire west coast (Vancouver for example) leading higher than normal dwell times and have impacted our ability to restore service back to our industry leading velocity. 

The operator of Fairview Terminal, DP World, is able to balance cargo across their two terminals in BC (Fairview Terminal and Centerm), and is using this flexibility and capacity to support recovery. This permits shifting cargo, working with the ocean carriers, to support an expeditious resolution to the congestion. 

We are working hard with our partners CN and DP World to restore service as quickly as possible and will see a significant improvement over the next 4-6 weeks.

As we outlined in our article from yesterday, the issue of dwell times first became prominent and reported by shipping industry information sources back in September, with the difficulties continuing through the fall with some past port calls redirected to the Lower mainland.

You can review the full range of items related to Fairview Terminal from our archive page here, while more notes on items of interest from the Port of Prince Rupert can be examined here.

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