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New warehouse coming for Thunder Bay port

Thunder Bay’s marine terminal for general cargo is being upgraded. The Thunder Bay Port Authority is receiving $1 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund toward the construction of a new $7-million warehouse.
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The Thunder Bay Port Authority will be building a new $7-million warehouse this year and demolishing an older one to make more dockside space for cargoes like imported structural steel.

Thunder Bay’s marine terminal for general cargo is being upgraded.

The Thunder Bay Port Authority is receiving $1 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund toward the construction of a new $7-million warehouse.

The announcement was made in Thunder Bay on April 15.

“We are in the design phase with construction planned to begin this fall (with) completion by 2018,” said authority CEO Tim Heney. “The building will be approximately 40,000 square feet, clear span, (with) no provision for cranes at this point, but it will be a consideration.”

The construction project will involve removing an older storage facility to create more dockside space for ships to unload general and project cargo.

“The structures at Keefer are now over 50 years old and were built for seasonal use without heat,” Heney added. “We are now operating year-round and the (new) building will be insulated and heated.”

During the 2015 shipping season, the western Lake Superior port handled 8.9 million tonnes of mostly grain cargoes. It ranked as the port’s third-strongest year since 2000.

Thunder Bay has historically been an export port for grain headed overseas.

But in recent years, the port authority has been successfully in generating more two-way freight traffic with inbound project cargoes to service the Western Canada oil patch and the wind energy companies.

After handling 15 project cargoes last year, the authority has 25 on the schedule this year.

Most of the cargoes are large modules and pressure vessels heading to the Alberta oil patch, along with wind turbine components.

With shipments of these big, heavy cargoes on the horizon, plus imports of European steel destined for Western Canada, more lay-down space in the Keefer yard is required.

The first of four shipments of structural steel from Luxembourg was scheduled to arrive in April, destined for the Alberta oilsands projects.

The new warehouse will be built further away from dock to serve as storage for local manufacturers and the forest products industry.

These upgrades are part of the authority’s five-year capital budget, which calls for a further $17 million as part of a plan to configure the Keefer site.