The green light has been given to Parrish & Heimbecker, Limited (P&H) to build and operate a new export facility located at Surrey, B.C. The company received approval from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority just last week.
Construction is expected to start before the end of the year, and once completed — in roughly two years — the terminal is expected to provide 4 million tonnes of terminal capacity per year. This is good news in light of exports of Canadian grain and specialty crops into the Chinese and South East Asia markets continuing to grow.
According to a news release, the new export facility will help alleviate two major constraints — limited Western Canada rail capacity, and a shortage of port industrial land for grain handling.
“P&H has grown substantially to support Canadian farmers and overseas customer demands. This project demonstrates our unwavering investment in the supply chain to build strong business relationships with customers around the world,” says Casey McCawley, vice president of west coast operations for P&H.
Premiere of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, and Manitoba’s Minister of Agriculture, Ralph Eichler, see the new Fraser Grain Terminal as a positive development for farmers as more and more prairie grain needs to go through the west coast.
The news release states the terminal will have modern storage facilities, three state-of the art shiploaders equipped with dust-reducing technology, and a fully-enclosed, above ground conveying system.
An extension will be made to the existing rail loading areas to allow high speed rail car unloading, increase loading efficiency, reduce rail shunting, and improving rail car cycle times between the Prairies and the Vancouver area.