Bolloré Logistics is expanding its presence in Prince Rupert citing increased activities in the port city.

In a statement, Bolloré said it has opened last year a new container freight station (CFS) in Prince Rupert (Canada), located approximately 17 km from Prince Rupert's container terminal consisting of a 20,000 square foot warehouse and 2-acre lay down area.

"The CFS was originally opened to provide container destuffing and transloading services for a large industrial project in region," the logistics company said, adding that there's been a "strong and continuous activity since its opening."

Bolloré added that it has approximately 600 transloads handled and roughly 8000 empty containers stored, and is "now ready to take on new customers."

Permanent transload 

"The goal being to offer a permanent transload presence at the Port of Prince Rupert," Bolloré said. 

Prince Rupert is a port city with a population of 12,000 people, located on the northwest coast of British Columbia, Canada and within the traditional territory of the Ts’msyen people.

Bolloré said in recent years, annual throughput at the Port of Prince Rupert has approached 30 million tons, making it one of the largest volume ports in Canada and a "critical milestone" for the port was the conversion of a break-bulk terminal to a container terminal in 2007.

"Since that time, the container terminal’s volumes have risen intensely and even surpassed 1 million TEUs per annum," the logistics company added, noting that the container terminal has been recognized as one of the fastest growing and most efficient in North America.

"Thanks to the size of its infrastructure, the Bolloré Logistics CFS is ready to serve all customers that are looking for transloading alternatives at the Port of Prince Rupert and the west coast – whether they ship retail or industrial cargos," said Evan Smithanik, facility manager at the Bolloré Logistics Prince Rupert CFS.

Main Services at Prince Rupert include container drayage, container stuffing and destuffing, transloading to truck, lift on and lift off services and container storage. Other services, such as bonded warehousing and transloading-to-rail, are under development.

Bolloré noted that the CFS serves all trade lanes transiting through Prince Rupert, especially those connecting east Asia (China, Korea, Japan) with North America – in particular eastern Canada and the mid-west US. 

"Intermodal customers using the Port of Prince Rupert benefit from reduced inventory costs on account of ocean transit times between Asia and North America that are two days shorter than any other west coast port," the company added.