Friday Activity

 Another arrival for Asian Gypsy Moth inspection came to anchor mid-day.

LMZ Ariel is a fairly typical bulker of 33,032 gt, 56,418 dwt, fitted with four cranes and clamshell buckets. It was built in 2012 by Yangzhou Guoyu in Yizheng, China. Operators LMZ Shipping SA have  ten bulkers in their fleet.

The ship is bound for Montreal, likely to load grain.

The ship's arrival was timed to take the place of the tanker Acadian which had just left the anchorage for Irving Oil's Woodside terminal.

At pier 31 Nirint Shipping's Augusta Luna completed unloading and put out to sea, bound for Bilbao, Spain.

Not all the action was in the harbour. The road approach to PSA Halifax southend container terminal was absolutely jammed with trucks.

The jam was likely caused in part by traffic for Oceanex Sanderling's regular Friday departure for St.John's. The line has reduced capacity out of Montreal at the moment since their largest ship Oceanex Connaigra is in Belfast, Northern Ireland for refit. The other ship on the Montreal run, Oceanex Avalon has no RoRo capability, so trucks have likely been sent here.

Other traffic at PSA must also be from Tropical Shipping which did not send a ship to Halifax on August 31 as per schedule, no doubt due to hurricanes in the Caribbean. Tropic Hope is due in Halifax  September 6.

Both PSA and Cerescorp are still dealing with the aftermath of the Montreal longshore strike with empties piled up all over the place. It will take weeks to return to normal at the rate they are going.

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