Category Archives: Transportation

Truck drivers have agreed to resume wood delivery to Port Hawkesbury Paper in Nova Scotia.

The mill has agreed to talks with the Northeastern Pulp Truckers’ Association that are expected to resume this week.

The truckers are frustrated over the low rates they are being paid for their wood deliveries.  They estimate mill’s pay scale will reduce their revenues by 15% over the previous mill owner, NewPage Port Hawkesbury.

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The logging truck drivers in Nova Scotia are still refusing to deliver wood to the Port Hawkesbury Paper mill.

The drivers are members of the Northeastern Pulp Truckers Association, an organization that represents dozens of independent trucking contractors.

Port Hawkesbury Paper said the refusal of the drivers to deliver wood is violating the federal Competition Act.  Mill officials say they won’t negotiate until full trucking operations are resumed.

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Truckers are refusing to deliver wood to Port Hawkesbury Paper, in Nova Scotia.

The truckers claim the mill is refusing to negotiate with their Northeastern Pulp Truckers Association.  Rates are down about 15% from the previous mill operator, NewPage Port Hawkesbury.

Only a 5 day supply of wood remains at the mill.

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The Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) supports the intent of the Fair Rail Freight Service Act, Bill C-52, to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency and reliability of the rail system but it recommends changes to help reduce the regulatory burden and help the legislation reach its stated intent.

FPAC appeared today before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities that is studying the legislation. The bill was brought in by the Government to level the playing field and address the imbalance in market power between shippers and the monopoly power of the railways.

“The bill is an important step forward in helping to ensure that rail shippers can deliver their goods in a timely, predictable and cost effective way to meet the needs of global customers be they in China, Europe or the United States,” says the President and CEO of FPAC, David Lindsay. “However we want to make three recommendations that would improve the bill and help restore balance in the rail system.”

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While most British Columbia Forest Practices Board audits find good practices, more than 55 per cent of issues found since 2005 are with roads and bridges, with five times more issues detected in 2010 and 2011 than in the previous five years combined, according to a board report released today.

“Roads and bridges are a common problem area in our audits,” said, board chair Al Gorley, “and poorly constructed or maintained roads and bridges create risks to workers, the public and the environment. The board is concerned that non-compliance has increased significantly over the past few years. An audit report the board also released today is a further example of these findings.”

The board has been seeing an increase in licensees who appear to be cutting back on maintenance work and are using few or no culverts in road construction.

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This week the Federal Government introduced the Fair Rail Freight Service Act bill that will give companies that ship goods by rail the right to a service agreement with railways.

It will also create an arbitration process to establish an agreement when commercial negotiations fail.

The new process will create a strong incentive for shippers and railways to negotiate service agreements commercially. If these negotiations are not successful, shippers will be able to trigger a fast and efficient arbitration process with the Canadian Transportation Agency. The goal of the legislation is to encourage railways and shippers to work together.

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Richard Garneau of Resolute Forest Products was among a group of CEOs and senior executives from major resource sectors to converge in Ottawa earlier this week to deliver a strong common message – that now is the time to address inefficient and inadequate rail freight service.

The business leaders, all members of the Coalition of Rail Shippers (CRS), brought their message directly to Ministers, groups of MPs and key officials from Transport, Industry, Natural Resources, Agriculture, the Canadian Transportation Agency and the Prime Minister’s Office.

“For Resolute Forest Products, the inefficiencies of rail service have an impact on our bottom line and our ability to compete in fiercely competitive world markets”, says Richard Garneau, President and Chief Executive Officer. “For example, it’s unacceptable for our company to receive hundreds of unusable rail cars delivered to us each year, delaying delivery or resulting in direct damage of product. In today’s marketplace, you must be a reliable supplier. What we are asking of government is entirely reasonable.”

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Pinnacle Renewable Energy (formerly Pinnacle Pellet) of Prince George, British Columbia, is planning to reduce it shipping costs by using an old grain terminal in Prince Rupert.

The company plans to spend $42 million to redevelop the old Westview Grain terminal into its overseas shipping terminal for its wood pellets. The terminal will provide the capacity to export 2 million tonnes of wood pellets a year.

Storage silos will be constructed to store the wood pellets. Belt conveyors and bucket elevators will be installed to transport pellets between rail cars, storage silos, and cargo ships. Pinnacle hopes to have the terminal ready by September 2013.

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The Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) is welcoming the government’s action to move forward on back to work legislation to bring to an end the ongoing strike by CP’s freight conductors and switching yard employees. The industry encouraged all parliamentarians to support this legislation to prevent further disruption to the economy.

“The forest products industry is one of Canada’s single largest users of freight rail services, annually shipping millions of tonnes of finished product,” said Catherine Cobden, President and CEO of FPAC. “Rail transportation is especially important for an export-dependent economy such as Canada’s where delivering products to markets swiftly and economically is a key to the country’s overall competitiveness.”

“Over 80 percent of our members’ mills are “captive” to a single railway provider, this strike underscores the fact that increased competition in the rail carrier business in Canada would create options for Canadian businesses to get their products to market more effectively,” said Cobden. “We’re currently estimating the daily loss to Canada’s forest sector by CP’s recent work stoppage to be $22 million, but we’re equally concerned with the impact mill shut downs will have on our employees and their communities.”

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Conifex Timber Inc. has announced that, further to its previously announced letter of intent, it has, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the commodity lumber distribution business owned and operated by Welco Lumber Corp.and the transportation and logistics business owned and operated by Navcor Transportation Services Inc..

The lumber distribution business to be acquired by Conifex consists of all of Welco’s assets related to its commodity dimensional lumber distribution business, other than certain current assets, and any assets of Marathon Forest Products Ltd., which will be retained by Welco.

Conifex also intends to enter into employment agreements with certain of Welco’s key employees in the commodity lumber distribution business prior to closing. Additionally, pursuant to the Agreement, Conifex will indirectly acquire Navcor’s transportation and logistics business by acquiring from Welco all of the issued and outstanding shares of Navcor on closing.

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