Crowded field of container projects on Canada’s East Coast

Quebec Laurentia Project

At the deepwater Port of Québec, major developments are in the works. Investment in infrastructure will reach a record high in 2019, with various projects valued at about C$70 million. And combined with planned investments by port users on their own facilities, total expenditures will surpass $169 million.

Of major significance is the port’s signing this past spring of a long-term commercial agreement with global terminal operator Hutchison Ports and Canadian National Railway to build a new $778 million container terminal re-baptized project Laurentia.

Hutchison eyes the terminal as its “gateway to the East Coast of North America,” commented Eric Ip, Group Managing Director of Hutchison Ports. Once the current review process with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is completed, the Port of Quebec plans to begin construction of a 500,000 TEU initial capacity terminal by 2020 that would be operational by 2024-2025. This would mark the return of the Port of Québec to a cargo sector it lost in the 1980s after CP Ships, later acquired by Hapag Lloyd, routed its North Atlantic container service to Montreal. Today, Quebec handles some 27 million metric tons of bulk and breakbulk cargo. Mario Girard, QPA President and CEO, has made his prime objective clear: “allowing the St. Lawrence to gain additional growth and competitiveness with US ports” on the East Coast that have expanded capacities to accommodate the new generation of large container vessels.