Richardson International says it has completed a $140-million expansion of its export terminal on the North Vancouver waterfront, nearly doubling the storage and receiving capacity of the facility.
The addition of an 80,000 tonne concrete storage annex boosts the terminal’s capacity to 178,000 tonnes. That will enable the port to handle more than six million tonnes of grain each year, according to the company.
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“Our Vancouver expansion was a significant investment in our business to ensure we have the appropriate capacity on the West Coast,” said Curt Vossen, President and CEO of Richardson International, in a release on Wednesday. “As Canada’s leading agribusiness, we have positioned ourselves globally to efficiently move Canadian grains and oilseeds to emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and other areas, further enhancing our ability to serve our farm customers at home and international buyers around the world.”
Construction started in 2013 and was done without interrupting operations at Richardson’s existing port facility. The company says it even broke shipping records while the construction was taking place, setting a new handling record of 5.2 million tonnes in 2015. The facility typically shipped around three million tonnes per year. Richardson says it broke monthly records in April 2016, shipping 551,000 tonnes of grain versus the previous record of 489,000 tonnes. The terminal also received 5,400 rail cars in April — 200 more than it had in a single month.
“For us to complete this project on time and on budget, not only continuing daily operations but exceeding expectations by setting new shipping and receiving records, is an outstanding accomplishment,” said Darwin Sobkow, Executive Vice-President, Agribusiness Operations and Processing.
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