The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority has announced that a temporary storage site for empty shipping containers has been set up in Richmond, a city in British Columbia, Canada, to strengthen local and national supply chains.
In mid-November, 2021, severe flooding in British Columbia completely cut off rail service connecting the Port of Vancouver to national supply chains for eight days.
“As partners throughout the Port of Vancouver continue work to clear supply-chain backlogs in the wake of November’s flooding, this new container storage site adds valuable capacity to support activities at Canada’s largest port, which in turn supports local and national supply chains,” said Robin Silvester, president and CEO of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.
The Canadian port authority believes the container storage sites are vital to support the movement and distribution of cargo to and from the port, and to reduce congestion at container yards.
On November 24, 2021, the federal government announced it would contribute more than US$3.2 million under the National Trade Corridors Fund toward a port authority-led project to prepare an undeveloped parcel of federal port land for the handling and storage of empty containers, and the port authority immediately began preparing a formerly undeveloped project site to be a temporary container storage site.
“By investing in our ports and infrastructure such as this container facility, we are keeping Canadian supply chains competitive and ensuring the resiliency of our trade corridors,” said Canada’s Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra.
The site, which is located on Portside Road at the end of No.8 Road in Richmond, has been prepared in three phases, with the first phase operational in January. The port authority continues to advance construction on the site and expects to see the full site completed by early March.
The port authority selected Coast2000 Terminals (a Western IntermodeX Enterprise) and Euro Asia, two integrated intermodal service companies and current port tenants within the Fraser Richmond Industrial Lands, to operate the temporary site.
Upon completion, the storage area will remain operational until July 2022. The site is part of federal port lands and is intended to be used for terminal development in the future.
