Highlights: Hamilton Port Authority
“Hwy H2O HIGHLIGHTS†focuses on our member ports and companies throughout the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System with stories that highlight innovative and interesting cargo movements; changes and improvements that ports and companies are making to create greater opportunity, and/or member insights on the latest market trends.
Highlights: Hamilton Port Authority
Agricultural, project cargo the stars of 2012
Cargo tonnages through the Port of Hamilton grew in 2012, while the types of cargo handled continued to diversify, year-end results show.
Hamilton’s expanding capacity in the agricultural sector is driving tonnage growth in fertilizer (up 27% over 2011), and grain (up 6%). It was a great year for Ontario soybeans, with almost a million tonnes being shipped out, most of it to overseas export markets. Agricultural tonnage as a proportion of the port’s total has doubled in the last five years, from 8% in 2008 to 16% in 2012. According to Hamilton’s Economic Development office, the agri-food sector is now a $1.3 billion per-year industry in Hamilton as a whole. The port and its partners are major drivers of this activity.
The port also handled a variety of interesting project cargo in 2012, with volumes increasing three-fold over 2011. Major shipments included windmill components, power plant process towers, rail cars and nuclear plant rotors. “The Port of Hamilton is well-positioned to move heavy cargo due to its strategic location on the Great Lakes, in close proximity to manufacturing and population centres in Canada and the US, and access to global destinations,†said Bruce Wood, Hamilton Port Authority President & CEO. Hamilton also has the most available staging space for heavy cargo of any Canadian port on the Great Lakes.
Finished steel and iron ore were areas of strength as well, posting significant gains over 2011. Total cargo handled through the port was 10.3 million MT in 2012, an increase of 3% over 2011.
The Port of Hamilton is the largest Canadian port on the Great Lakes in terms of both size and cargo handled. The Hamilton Port Authority’s strategic vision is to be the Great Lakes port of choice.
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