TORONTO: Traffic at the Port of Halifax has fallen 7.1 per cent so far this year as container volume continues to drop. Container tonnage declined 8.9 per cent as of mid-year, compared with 2014, the Halifax Port Authority reported.
Meanwhile, the volume of non-containerized traffic, or break bulk, was up 13.4 per cent during the first six months of the year. The port has handled 1.7 million metric tonnes of cargo so far in 2015. That compares with 1.9 million metric tonnes during the same period last year.Container numbers were also down 4.5 per cent so far in 2015. Karen Oldfield, the authority’s president and CEO, said the mid-year totals reflect the impact winter weather had on port traffic up until March.
“When we look at the second quarter, over the same time last year, we’re basically on par, 2015 to 2014,” she said in an interview. During the second quarter, port traffic slid 0.6 per cent compared with the same 2014 period. Container traffic was down seven per cent compared with Q2 last year. At the same time, tonnage for non-containerized cargo climbed 91.1 per cent. The authority said the increase is due to heavy lift project cargo moving through Richmond Terminals. Break bulk is a small amount of overall port traffic and tends to fluctuate, officials said.
The total number of containers handled during the second quarter fell 0.8 per cent. While cargo volumes have been down the past two years, Oldfield said there’s reason to believe that traffic may pick up during the third quarter. She pointed to an announcement earlier this month by G6 Alliance of changes on its Asia-to-North America routes that include an additional stop in Halifax. The consortium’s Asian Suez Express service is starting to make an outbound call to the port this summer. The stop replaces one that was dropped two years ago by a group then known as the Grand Alliance.
