News Content

Quebec City mulls deep water comeback with mega ship possibilities

OUTCLASSED by Montreal in the 1970s when long-gone CP Ships installed a container terminal there, Quebec City may now come into its own in the age of mega ships, observes Fort Lauderdale's Maritime Executive.

Just as Halifax in distant Nova Scotia once did threaten, now Quebec City, with its deep water and top notch road and rail links to consumer-rich central Canada and the US Midwest now threatens Montreal's fading maritime dominance.

That's because Montreal, while closer to a rich hinterland customers, has only 10.6 metres (35 feet) of water to handle anything bigger than old panamaxes ships of 4,500 TEU and then lightly loaded and only a high water and not in winter unless ice-strengthened. But not so lightly loaded that they run afoul of bridges spanning the St Lawrence River.

Authorities at Quebec City, have recently announced the intention to develop an intermodal container port and transshipment terminal. Like Port of Newark, Port of Quebec can offer 15-metre (49-foot) water depth and has access to a main highway as well as railway service. The proposed container port faces much competition from other ports in the region, including Montreal.

Prior to the reconstruction of the Panama Canal to transit larger ships, the most widely used size of containerships could sail to the Port of Montreal.

Downstream of the easternmost bridge across the St Lawrence River located on the west side of Quebec City, water depth increases. As a result, ships too deep and too high to sail to the Port of Montreal can berth at quayside at Port of Quebec City, says Maritime Executive.

"The proposal to develop a container terminal at Port of Quebec follows negotiations between Canada and Europe in regard to the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement (CETA) that includes allowing easier passage for European flagged ships to sail in Canadian territorial waters." said the report.

If CETA results in an increase in container trade moving across the North Atlantic and Europe, there are prospects for larger containerships to be assigned to that route. Fully laden containerships of 8,000 TEU capacity and 14-metre (46 foot) draft could arrive at Quebec City and transfer containers to the railways and trucks.

If Canada-Europe trade continues to warrant the sailing of 3,500-TEUers into Montreal and the prospect of Europe-Canada/US trade looks good, then trade into Upper Great Lakes become a real possibility with regularly scheduled 6,000 to 10,000-TEUers transferring inland cargo at Quebec.

"The willingness of Ports of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto to encourage interlining of ships to and from Port of Quebec for their European maritime trade, business prospects for Port of Quebec would likely improve and possibly at the expense of Port of Montreal," said the report.