(Reuters circulated the following article on June 15.)
CHICAGO — A new container port on Canada’s west coast expected to open next year could boost Canadian National Railway Co.’s annual revenue by C$300 million to C$500 million, the company’s top executive said on Thursday.
“This will be a big part of our growth,” moving forward, Chief Executive Officer Hunter Harrison said at a transportation conference hosted by Merrill Lynch in New York.
The facility in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, will have an eventual capacity of 1.2 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units). Harrison said the first phase of the project — which could provide capacity of up to 750,000 TEUs — should be completed by October 2007.
The Canadian railroad has ordered 50 locomotives from Electro-Motive Diesel Inc. to handle traffic coming out of the port.
Canadian National intends to use the port at Prince Rupert to tap into soaring Asian trade, bringing goods to U.S. consumers in the United States through a rail network that covers Canada coast to coast and runs north to south from Michigan and Minnesota all the way down to New Orleans.
Over the past three years, U.S. imports have seen double-digit growth, much of that from developing nations such as China. Ports on both coasts of North America are competing to cash in on that growth, in particular because of concerns over capacity constraints at the largest U.S. port complex at Los Angeles-Long Beach.
Harrison said that if Long Beach suffered from congestion, Prince Rupert could move goods by up to 10 days faster than the L.A. port.