40 American Journal of Transportation American Journal of Transportation ajot.com reduce heavy reliance on the US market as part of a comprehen- sive response to the tariff war of the Trump Administration. For his part, Bird declared: “The MPA is a key link in sup- porting the growth of our domes- tic businesses, and I will leverage my leadership and operational experience at the Port, drawing on trusted relationships with our teams and our commercial and financial partners, to ensure the sound management of opera- tions as thousands of businesses rely on us to diversify or reshore trade flows.” A graduate in Applied Geol- ogy, Paul Bird has extensive experience managing large- scale projects. Having joined the MPA in 2020 as Senior Director of the Contrecœur expansion project and later serving as chief commercial officer, he played a key role in securing environmental per- mits, finalizing design and engineering, developing part- nership agreements, and initi- ating preparatory work for the terminal project. He previously spent nearly 10 years over- seeing infrastructure for the mining, rail and port sectors at ArcelorMittal. It was on April 3 that the Montreal Port Authority, with- out clarifying details, announced that Julie Gascon had “ceased her position” as chief executive occu- pied since February 2024. There was no customary accompany- ing board comment thanking a departing executive for services rendered, which fed speculation on a possible dismissal. Bird had previously left in March to join the executive team of ALTO seeking to develop a high-speed rail service on the Toronto-Quebec City corridor. The C-team exodus continued on April 13, when chief finan- cial officer Alban Fournier departed to take up a new job as CFO of 5N Plus Inc., a company specialized in the production of specialty semiconductors and high-performance materials. Now the Port of Montreal must find a new CFO. In addi- tion, many changes are looming at the MPA board level. Four of the six directors, including chair Nathalie Pilon, will this summer reach the end of their maximum nine-year terms to make way for new members. However, Bird’s biggest chal- lenge clearly remains to shepherd to completion the long delayed Contrecoeur project 25 miles northeast of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River. To be oper- ated by DP World Canada, with start-up targeted for 2030, it will handle up to 1.15 million containers annually – boosting existing capacity at the Port of Montreal by 60%. In the past few years, its cost has ballooned to C$2.3 bil- lion. But existing support from the federal and Quebec provin- cial governments still leaves at least $600 million remaining to be found to cover a total finan- cial package – and negotiations with DP World have not yet been entirely finalized. (RETURNS – continued from page 38) Port of Rotterdam Q1 volumes show slight decline By Stas Margaronis, AJOT from the Middle East will also be reflected in the figures for the second quarter, given the ship- ping time from that region. As Cargo volumes at the Port of Rotterdam fell slightly by 0.7% in the first quarter of 2026. According to Boudewijn Siemons, CEO of Port of Rot- terdam Authority: “Through- put at the Port of Rotterdam remained largely stable in the first quarter of 2026, despite growing geopolitical tensions. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz highlights just how vulnerable global energy flows are; the effects of this were only marginally apparent in the first quarter and may become more pronounced in the second quarter. At the same time, the growth in oil, oil products and containers shows that Rotter- dam remains resilient as a Euro- pean energy and logistics hub.” The Port said that cargo vol- umes for the first three months of this year stood at 103.0 mil- lion tons, compared with 103.7 million tons in the first quarter of 2025. The decline “is mainly due to a reduction in the through- put of agribulk, coal, other liquid bulk and breakbulk.” Volumes for “iron ore and scrap metal, other dry bulk, crude oil, min- eral oil products, LNG and con- tainers (TEU) increased.” Impact of Strait of Hormuz Closure The closure of the Strait of Hormuz “has severely disrupted the global energy system. Rotter- dam was dependent on countries in the Persian Gulf for 10% of its crude oil throughput and 14% of its oil product throughput.” At the Port of Rotterdam 19 million tons or the equiva- lent of 4.4% of “Rotterdam’s total annual throughput relates to countries in the Persian Gulf. This mainly comprises crude oil from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, kerosene from Kuwait, fuel oil from Saudi Arabia and gas oil / diesel from Qatar. LNG from Qatar does not come to Rotter- dam. Around two-thirds of the LNG throughput in Rotterdam comes from the United States.” Due to higher prices for oil products in Asia, Asia is more dependent on imports of crude oil and petroleum products from the Middle East than Europe. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz led to rising prices for oil products in Asia: “At least five tankers that were en route to Rotterdam have changed course to head for Asia. The conse- quences of this will contribute to lower inflows in the second quarter. Imports of oil products (VOLUMES – continued on page 43) Throughput at the port of Rotterdam fell slightly in the first quarter of 2026.
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