More TEUs

The Port of Halifax (Halifax Port Authority = HPA) has announced results for 2017 and as expected the TEU count is way up. A 16% increase over 2016 sets an all time record of 559,242 TEU. The previous record, set in 2005, was 550,642.

Halifax is a pip squeak on the word stage for containers. Consider the following port stats for 2016:

• Shanghai  37.133 mn (broke the 40 million mark by early December 2017)
• Singapore 30 mn
• Shenzhen 23 mn

Among the top twenty world ports only two are not in Asia:

• Rotterdam 12 mn
• Antwerp 10 mn

Among our neighbour / competitors:

• New York 6.5 mn
• Montreal in 2017 about 1.35 mn  (up 7% from 2016)

 How Halifax was able to achive a 16% increase with fewer cranes and larger ships indicates that the port must be working well below capacity. The increase is at least partly due to the addition of Tropical Shipping to the lines serving Halifax.

 The arrival of the first 10,000 TEU ship was heralded, even tough 13,000 an larger are calling in nearby US Ports.

Nice as this increase my be, it is no invitaiton for complacency. The long promised master plan is needed now.

Overall Halifax port tonnage is up 12% signalling a major drop in non-containerized cargo. In fact export tonnage through HPA facilities was down a startling 25%. If non-HPA facilites are included there was an increase of 7.5% import and 7.7% export tonnage.

There was also good news on the passenger front, with 173 ships and 292,722 visitors, up 22.9% over 2016. (2014, 2015 and 2016 were off years. There were 252,121 passengers in 2013).

.