Coal is loaded onto a bulk carrier vessel next to the Deltaport container terminal in Delta, B.C., on Sept. 9.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The Port of Vancouver has called a truce after waging a bitter feud with a major tenant and will allow GCT Global Container Terminals Inc. to compete to become the operator of a proposed import and export facility.
GCT operates the existing Deltaport container site, but until recently, the company was barred from bidding to run the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) project. The company has been seeking to expand its existing site.
The $3.5-billion RBT2 project requires the construction of an artificial island near Delta, B.C., located about 30 kilometres south of Vancouver, as part of the Canadian government’s goal to increase trade with Asia over the long term.
Peter Xotta, who became president of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority in late 2023, said that upon reflection, GCT will now be included in the process to determine RBT2′s operator.
The authority oversees the Port of Vancouver, where GCT runs the Deltaport and Vanterm container sites. DP World Canada operates the Centerm container site and the multipurpose Fraser Surrey Docks.
“Under new leadership, we’ve got a different perspective on this,” Mr. Xotta said in an interview.
Mr. Xotta and his team will be examining whether it’s efficient to select GCT, which would have the advantage of its Deltaport facility being located next door to RBT2. “The fundamental tradeoff is efficiencies versus increased competition,” he said.
Mr. Xotta replaced Robin Silvester, who stepped down from the port’s top job in June, 2023, after more than 14 years at the helm. Victor Pang, who is the port authority’s chief financial officer, filled in on an interim basis for five months as president.
The authority reports to the federal Transport Minister Anita Anand.
The RBT2 project, which is subject to 370 legally binding conditions to comply with environmental rules, received approval last year from the federal and B.C. governments. The initial phase is slated for completion by the mid-2030s, followed by incremental expansion as required.
Environmentalists warn that the new container terminal would threaten sensitive habitat in the Fraser River estuary, affecting shorebirds such as western sandpipers, and harming feeding conditions for endangered southern resident killer whales.
Ecojustice Canada, the country’s largest environmental law charity, is opposing RBT2 in Federal Court.
GCT and DP operate as tenants on land leased from the port authority.
GCT wants to increase capacity at its three-berth Deltaport facility, proposing a fourth berth in a project that it has argued would be better than RBT2.
But with Mr. Xotta opening up the competition for the right to run RBT2, Vancouver-based GCT is no longer engaged in a public campaign to criticize the landlord.
“We are happy to be part of the discussions related to container capacity expansions at Roberts Bank, including the efficiencies our operations may bring to the table,” GCT president Eric Waltz said in a statement.
The winning bid to run RBT2 is scheduled to be chosen by 2030, after construction is under way but before the new container terminal’s first phase opens.
The port authority has reached mutual benefit agreements with 27 Indigenous groups consenting to the project.
GCT’s Vanterm and DP’s Centerm are located along the shore shores of Burrard Inlet, near downtown Vancouver. DP, which completed an expansion project at Centerm last year, is also eligible to enter the race to become RBT2′s operator.
“We’re not excluding the partners that we’ve had many, many years of successful collaboration with,” Mr. Xotta said.
Previously, port officials sought to lure other companies to consider operating RBT2, though no deal was ever landed.
Upon completion, the additional container capacity could mean a jump of more than 30 per cent compared with the current combined capacity in B.C. at the Port of Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert.
Canada’s top trading partner is China at the Port of Vancouver, which handled 20.4 million tonnes of a wide range of exports and imports in the first half of 2024 between the two countries. That was an 11-per-cent increase from the same period in 2023. Japan is the second-largest trading partner with Canada at the port, followed by South Korea.
Amid weakened Canadian exports such as coal and forest products, total cargo volume at the Port of Vancouver in the first half slipped 0.6 per cent to 75.5 million tonnes, when compared with the year-earlier period’s 76 million tonnes.
The shipping industry deploys large vessels to carry containers, which are reusable steel boxes measured as 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs.
Nearly 1.8 million TEUs of exports and imports went through the Port of Vancouver in the first six months, up 14 per cent from the same period in 2023.