Solid 2022 Shipping Season at the Port of ThunderBay

BYSCOTTA. SUMNER Thunder Bay BUSINESS

The shipping season started in late March 2022 and ended January 15th, 2023. That is when the Soo Locks close as they are run by the Army Core of Engineers and it has always been that way. Overall the sea- even 20 below temperatures, you can gain 4 inches of ice per day.” son has been a pretty good one for the Port of Thunder Bay.

The shipping season is about 10 months long these days and that is up about 25% over the early years in the fifties. There have been some efforts made to make it longer. This weather is still variable though and the Port of Thunder Bay have had years when the ice breaker is here in June.

How did the Port of ThunderBay perform this shipping season?

“ It was fortunate for us with potash shipments higher which was related to the Ukraine situation. Grain was down as the crop was pretty poor last year. Usually you have two parts to the season, the leftover from last years harvest and the current years harvest which starts in the fall. This year there wasn’t much leftover from the prior years harvest. The harvest this year was the third best in history so it started to balance out from where it was.The wet spring did cause a later planting.You need 90 days of good weather.” said Tim Heney.

“This season has been good weather wise. It started out cold and then ice started to form but the recent big winds blew the ice out causing it not to form in many areas. Then it warmed up,” said Tim Heney, CEO Port of Thunder Bay. “At this time there is some ice in the Kam River up to the grain elevators there. The Mobile X terminal has one more ship to come in this season. In that area the wind doesn’t affect it as much. We may have to get an ice breaker in there. If you get straight 40 below, or

“ There are no ships that come to Thunder Bay empty. They may come into Lake Michigan and have a load up to Thunder Bay at least for part of their overall journey. The ships come from Europe with various steel parts usually and then return with grain. Europe is well known for steel production and Canada hasn’t made certain types of steel for many years so there is a lot of imported steel.”

“ Overall the season came out pretty well for us over last year.We are down because of the grain.The grain was 6.3 million tonnes and last year 7.2 million, and normally we are over 8 million so a pretty weak year for grain. Potash was 1.2 mil- considering what it looked like in the spring. Grain is a large portion of the shipments through the Port.” lion versus 600,000 last year so double and made up for some grain.Overall we were down about 5% which was pretty good

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