(The following story by Jim Kelly appeared on the Chronicle Journal website on November 25.)
THUNDER BAY, Ontario — After a 47-day voyage from Japan, the MV Stellaprima arrived in Thunder Bay on Monday carrying four huge reactors each weighing more than 500 metric tons.
They are bound for the Alberta oilsands.
The first reactor arrived in August and set a record for what was then the single largest piece of cargo handled by Thunder Bay‘s port.
That reactor weighed 400 tonnes.
The combined weight of the four reactors is 2,142.32 tonnes.
Roger Dudley, agent for Canada and the Great Lakes states for the ship‘s Dutch owners, said the reactors each perform a key oilsands production step, cracking heavy bitumen molecules by stripping off hydrogen, then reassembling the elements into premium refinery-ready light oil.
Oilsands are deposits of bitumen, a heavy black viscous oil that must be rigorously treated to convert it into an upgraded crude oil before it can be used by refineries to produce gasoline and diesel fuels. Alberta‘s bitumen deposits were once known as tarsands but are now referred to as oilsands.
With shipments of grain and bulk cargo down, the new shipments show that the port is ideally suited for handling this type of cargo, said William Hryb, general manager of Lakehead Shipping Company Ltd.
“We have proven again that Thunder Bay has the necessary expertise and excellent infrastructure at Keefer Terminal,” he said.
“It clearly illustrates that we are a natural gateway and conduit to the oilsand developments in Alberta.”
The Stellaprima travelled across the Pacific Ocean, through the Panama Canal, north through the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean and into the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Going from Japan to Vancouver would have been shorter and less expensive, but West Coast ports are not an option for such shipments because there is not enough clearance to make it through the Rocky Mountains.
Hryb said the reactors will be unloaded over three days starting today from the ship to reinforced CN Rail cars.
“Thunder Bay will be a valuable and strategic link to the long-range plans of energy companies who are developing petroleum resources in Canada‘s oilsands,” he said.
Tim Heney, chief executive officer of the Thunder Bay Port Authority, said the movement of the reactors through Thunder Bay is the start of something more important.
“This is a corridor to the oilsands formulated between us and CN Rail,” he said.
“And, a lot of work has been done on that route to improve clearances to permit this kind of equipment to go through. And we‘re looking at, as this corridor gets going, the spinoffs that come from that, so it‘s actually quite important,” Heney said.
He predicted more shipments to Thunder Bay next year. “We‘re certainly going to be rolling after this one.”