[MEMBERTOU, NS] — A bulk coal terminal in Sydney plans to invest $75 million in capital to service some of the largest vessels the harbour can accommodate now that the dredging project is complete.
Provincial Energy Ventures has operated the Atlantic Canada bulk terminal on 45 hectares of the former Sysco site since 2002.
At an economic development forum held in Membertou on Thursday, Provincial Energy Ventures president Ernie Thrasher told a business audience the worldwide demand for coal and a dredged Sydney harbour drove the decision to upgrade and expand its facility.
“The dredged channel will allow us to bring coal into Sydney in small vessels, store the coal, and load the coal into large vessels for a cost-effective delivery to customers throughout the world,” Thrasher said.
He said no government grants or loans are included in the project.
An access channel leading to the wharf must first be dredged to the depth of Sydney harbour.
Thrasher said his company initially thought it could “piggyback” on the Sydney harbour dredging project by spending $3.5 million of its own money to use the dredging vessel Oranje to dig the channel.
However, he told the audience that government regulations and timing issues put an end to that idea.
“The costs for this work now will likely be 1.5 to two times higher than the original cost if we had been able to utilize the dredge Oranje.”
He said it’s hoped the dredge will take place between April and June.
The dredged material will be used to form a 13-hectare area of usable land to expand the coal-handling facility. Currently, the terminal has onsite storage for up to 700,000 tonnes of bulk commodities.
The new facility will have a capacity to ship three million to five million tonnes of coal per year.
There have already been “several hundreds of thousands of dollars” spent on engineering and permit work to avoid any delays to the project, Thrasher added.
As well, an agreement has been reached in principal with Nova Scotia Lands to renew Provincial Energy Ventures’ lease. Thrasher said it could be finalized within days.
The entire project, including repairing the existing wharf and associated infrastructure, is expected to be complete in 2014.
Thrasher said the success of his company will have others looking closely at the Port of Sydney as a place to do business.
“I believe the recently completed channel dredging has laid the foundations to create the next era of economic development and economic renaissance for this region.”
It could also lead to the revival of large-scale coal production at mines in Cape Breton, Thrasher added.
The $38-million harbour dredging project has made Sydney the newest deepwater port on North America’s east coast.
Enterprise Cape Breton Corp.’s Marlene Usher, executive director general of advocacy and development, said other than Provincial Energy Ventures there’s another company, a manufacturer, interested in taking advantage of Sydney’s new deepwater port, but a confidentiality clause means she can’t talk about it.
“It would be substantial and very exciting,” she said.
Usher said it’s fantastic news considering the dredging project only wrapped up a week ago, a marketing strategy hasn’t begun, and it’s already creating a buzz in business circles.
“When you have a deepwater port that is so strategically located as Sydney harbour, the word does get out,” she said. “We have Sydport and Harbourside, so having that land available for development is really a huge asset because many ports are very congested.”
