By IAN ROSS
Sudbury’s Mansour Group of Companies are expanding into the global logistics business with a $10-million intermodal freight-handling facility and an extended rail spur.
The industrial manufacturer and supplier intends to develop a major re-load and distribution centre for the region’s mining and forestry industry.
Through Mansour’s logistics subsidiary, Sea Rail Transloading Inc., an additional 500 metres of track is being tacked onto its existing rail spur to link their new 20,000-square-foot warehouse with the nearby Canadian Pacific Rail (CP) main line.
“The key is to be able to ship and receive products from all over the world,” says Gilles Lebeau, Mansour’s vice-president of finance and operations.
Sea Rail is Mansour’s newest company, sourcing commodities such as lime, lumber, sand, petroleum and soda ash for transport.
Lebeau says having dedicated storage space and a transfer facility should cut costs for Northern Ontario shippers.
Commodities can be transferred from trucks onto rail cars in Greater Sudbury for shipment across Canada, to the U.S. and overseas, instead of the more expensive option of trucking product directly to North American customers or to intermodal facilities in southern Ontario.
An expanded transfer yard should generate plenty of short-haul opportunities for area truckers, adds Lebeau.
The company says negotiations are also underway with CP to connect with a central 90,000-square-foot warehouse located near an undisclosed port on the St. Lawrence River. Their current business in Sudbury includes moving lumber for companies such as Domtar and handling ore cars for the major Sudbury miners, hauling ferrosilicon, an alloy used in smelters and foundries.
Lebeau says some existing warehouse space run by their Consolidated Logistics subsidiary is “used to the max.”
The Mansour Group says there’s enough freight opportunities in the North to push an initial 2,000 rail cars annually through their transfer yard.
“We’ve got a lot of interest in that facility to store concentrate for our mining customers,” says Lebeau. “We’re already talking about a second (warehouse).”
The new facility is expected to create 10 jobs up front. But greater anticipated volumes could boost that workforce to as many as 75, particularly in positions for equipment operators and experienced rail hands.
There’s future plans to install a conveyor loading system and possibly explore handling containers, as per shippers’ and customers’ wishes. “That’s definitely a long-term vision that we hope to be able to develop.”
In late June, Mansour received $1.7 million in provincial loans for the intermodal project.
Sudbury MPP and Minister of Northern Development and Mines Rick Bartolucci toured the facility and announced the funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and the Grow Bonds Business Loan Pilot Program.
Lebeau says Sault Ste. Marie’s new intermodal terminal, its port facilities and rail access to Greater Sudbury should complement Mansour’s expanding business.
