ONTARIO: The arrival of a shipment of salt at the Port of Algoma Wednesday signalled a major step for the project. The cargo stream was the port’s first new shipment since it was established last year.
The shipment contained salt for highways from Compass Minerals, travelling from Goderich, Ont. Its arrival was “a very big moment” for the company, said Anshumali Dwivedi, CEO of the Port of Algoma.
The company is still conducting impact studies and waiting for modernization projects to be completed, but the arrival of this first shipment signals that the port is open for business, Dwivedi said. Demonstrating that the port is already operational is critical to attracting new investments, he added.
“It’s important for us because the mandate for my team was to go after new users and get them to start using the port,” he said.
“In these kind of initiatives, having a port becomes a good magnet for attracting these investments, because when you can demonstrate to the user groups that they would have a cost advantage in terms of logistics, they can handle bulk material by ship, it becomes all the more attractive for industries to come up closer to this project.”
This will likely be the last cargo stream for 2015 as winter approaches, essentially putting the port out of business for the season due to harsh conditions. But the company is expecting to bring in a number of new shipments in the New Year.
“2016 should be a very good year as our business from the new cargo streams goes up probably four to five times,” he said.
Dwivedi said impact studies are expected to be completed by year-end, after which the company will engage First Nations communities for feedback. Though the port’s docks still need to be modernized, that isn’t holding the company back from starting to do business, Dwivedi said.
“That work will continue but we do have the docks that need to be utilized. So we’re not waiting for the modernization to get completed, we will continue doing business.” Port of Algoma is owned by Essar Ports Global Holdings and is the operating company in Sault Ste. Marie. Essar Ports is India’s second largest private-sector ports company.
