As the federal agency tasked with enabling trade through the Port of Vancouver, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority has long been focused on building capacity to meet growing container trade needs at Canada’s largest port.
For more than a decade, we have been leading the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Project, a new 2.4 million TEU terminal that would increase Canada’s west coast container capacity by one-third. We are hopeful for government approval of that project in the coming months. Additionally, since before 2015, we have been advancing the Centerm Expansion Project and South Shore Access Project in partnership with DP World, which will increase the terminal capacity to 1.5 million TEU. Despite the challenges of construction through the pandemic, the project is on track to be substantially complete by the end of this year.
The past two-and-a-half years have affirmed and added urgency to our focus on delivering more container capacity. Through this period, the Port of Vancouver, similar to all ports, has felt the impact of strained supply chains in the face of a sustained surge in consumer demand. In the Vancouver area, global challenges were exacerbated by local challenges, including wildfires and severe flooding in 2021 that cut us off from Canada’s supply chains for eight days with full connectivity not restored for another nine days. More recently, we have seen at-capacity warehouses in the east slowing cargo movement at the port.
In terms of lasting changes, the past few years have focused all eyes on building resiliency and capacity in container supply chains to withstand future unknowns.
Yet from our vantage point at the port authority, the equation has not changed much. The container growth story continues, perhaps slightly accelerated, and our challenge and opportunity today — as it was pre-pandemic — is creating the capacity needed to meet it and to provide a resilient supply chain.
As we talk about restoring supply chains and building resiliency into them, we continue to hear from the port’s major customers: “Everything starts with container capacity.”
We couldn’t agree more — and we are intent on delivering that.