Montreal Strike Fall out

 The large quantities of containers stranded in Halifax due to the recent port workers strike and lockout in Montreal is diminishing somewhat, but by most reports there are still hundreds if not thousands of containers waiting for transport westbound. (There may have been as many as 5,000 containers off loaded here.) The terminals, and CN Rail, are coping with the extra boxes while still serving their regular customers and have pretty much maxed out the ability to move the containers any faster. The limited number of Halifax longshore workers has also been maxed out according to some reports. Fleets of trucks have been brought from Quebec, but each moving one container at a time is a slow go.

MSC has applied for a coasting license to use two foreign flag ships to carry some of the stranded boxes from Halifax to Montreal. (See November 20 post.) Both ships were en route to Halifax and had extra capacity.

MSC Sagitta III moved in to Fairview Cove Saturday, November 23 in hopes of a speedy Ministerial approval of its coasting license application, which may happen today. However when I passed the area late this morning there was no activity on the ship.

MSC Sagitta III alongside as in the background HMCS Ville de Quebec sails into Bedford Basin. (The Port of Quebec City has no container pier and has labour issues of its own.)

The second ship, MSC Baltic III has been standing by offshore since at least November 21 awaiting its turn for a license. There is no ETA in Halifax for it yet.

CMA CGM operates a four ship transatlantic service from Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp to Montreal called St Laurent 1, jointly with Maersk. Because there are draft restrictions on the St.Lawrence River, ships often call in Halifax on the return eastbound leg from Montreal to top off their loads to oceangoing draft. They rarely if ever call in Halifax westbound.

CMA CGM also operates a joint service with Hapag-Lloyd from Mediteranean ports to Montreal called MEDCAN, using seven ships. 

During the recent port workers strike and lockout in Montreal, CMA CGM diverted one of the Medcan ships, the Barcelona Express to the Port of Saint John, NB where it offloaded containers bound for Montreal.

CMA CGM then applied for a coasting license to use one of the St-Laurent I ships, the EM Kea, on its westbound leg, to pickup the boxes in Saint John and take them to Montreal. Some of the boxes were temperature controlled and there was a risk of spoilage if they were deayed too long.

In the end, the New Brunswick Southern and CPKC railways were able to move the 143 containers and the coasting license application was withdrawn.

Meanwhile in Halifax today, November 25, the CMA CGM Paranagua arrived on the eastbound leg of the St-Laurent 1 service to top off.  CMA CGM Paranagua is very similar in appearance to the 2007 built EM Kea, but is two years older, dating from 2005. The ships were built, in series of a dozen or more sister ships, by Stocznia Szczecinska Nowa in Poland over period of several years. The are readily identifiable by the sloped fairing on the after side of the superstructure.

 

It is a 35,881 gt, 41,801 dwt ship with a capacity of 3091 TEU with 500 reefer plugs. Unlike its younger sister however, it is equipped with three cargo cranes.

Originally named Cosima by the Peter Doehle organization, it was renamed Norasia Atlas in 2005, and Letavia briefly during 2006 becoming Emirates Freedom to 2009 when it was again named Letavia until 2021. CMA CGM then acquired the ship and it took its present name, and placed it under the management of NSB Niederelbe.

Paranguá is a major port in the south of Brazil, and its name comes from the indigenous Tupi language, and means "great round sea".

The other ships on the CMA CGM /Maersk St.Laurent 1 service do not seem to have been held up very much by the Montreal strike, which lasted from October 31 to November 14:

 EM Kea had sailed from Montreal before the strike and called Halifax October 30. It is now en route from Antwerp (November 15) and is due in Montreal November 25. 

The Volga Maersk was in Halifax eastbound October 19 and is now due in Montreal again November 24. It appears to have been slow steaming for a time since it left Antwerp November 9.

Vistula Maersk sailed from Montreal November 1 and was in Halifax eastbound on November 5. It sailed from Antwerp November 22 and is due in Montreal December 6, possibly slow steaming for a time.

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