The Port of Prince Rupert, on Canada’s Pacific coast north of Vancouver, has announced that its Ridley Island Export Logistics Project (RIELP) has reached a significant milestone, receiving the final determination of the federal environmental effects evaluation review. The review found that the project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.
Following receipt of required permits, early work on the project is planned to begin this month with tree clearing and site preparation activities.
The Prince Rupert Port Authority (PRPA) continues to work with its commercial partners toward making a final investment decision on the project, expected later this year.
The export logistics complex is planned as an integrated ecosystem of large-scale bulk and breakbulk transload facilities, intermodal rail yard and container storage yard on the southern end of Ridley Island. The new facility would be a transloading facility for commodities such as plastic pellets, cereal grains, specialty agriculture crops, lumber and pulp to be loaded directly from rail into containers for export. It would create 400,000 teu of export capacity.
Anticipated environmental benefits of the project include the densification of transload activities into a single location on Ridley Island to minimise land impacts, and proximity to Fairview Container Terminal via the dedicated Fairview-Ridley Connector Corridor to minimise container truck movements and emissions, while maximising rail usage on common infrastructure.
