Loading grain cargoes on ships during rainfall
Location: National, with a primary focus on the Port of Vancouver and resultant impacts on railways and Prairie Provinces.
Issue/Source: Canadian grain exports, supply chains / TRAN
Date: March 2024
Suggested Responses
- Transport Canada (TC) is actively supporting the development of new approaches to load grain on ships during rainy weather, while prioritizing safety. Testing is currently taking place on multiple approaches.
- In addition, TC has considered international best practices and lessons from other countries, including the United States, for comparison to the Canadian context.
- Importantly, TC will only advance approaches which protect or improve the safety of workers who load ships, and which protect the safety and quality of Canada’s export grains.
If Pressed
On testing specifics:
- Transport Canada is currently testing multiple new technologies and procedures. More information on specific outcomes is expected to be shared in the coming months.
- As concepts become ready to implement, employers and unions will work together to ensure that operational procedures will protect the health and safety of workers.
On other ports/countries:
- Transport Canada understands that some loading during rainfall occurs in other parts of the world. Those instances are accompanied with consequences and tradeoffs, which Canada is confident can be avoided through innovation to protect both the safety of workers and the quality and safety of Canada’s export grains.
Background Information
- Roughly 75% of Canadian grain is exported through Canada’s west coast. Typically, in good weather, grain is loaded into a ship’s holds through a free-pour approach. This involves opening the hatch covers and pouring the grain into the hold at a full loading rate.
- Too much moisture can damage grain. To prevent introducing moisture during rainfall, grain can be loaded into ship’s holds through a feeder-hole approach. This involves leaving the hatch covers closed and loading grain through pipes inserted through a hole (roughly 3 feet in diameter) in the ship’s hatch cover. However, this loading method is inefficient because:
- Safety requirements when working on top of hatch covers significantly affect loading efficiencies in the rain. Multiple arbitration hearings since 2005 culminated in a 2018 ruling based on the Maritime Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (MOHSR), which requires terminals to use guardrails and fall arrestor systems when people are on hatch covers. This approach can take hours to set up and dismantle and requires a crane and additional labour.
- Grain dust can accumulate in a closed hold which, at high concentrations, can introduce the risk of explosions. To minimize dust, the loading rate is often about 60% slower than normal. Current practice requires a person remain on the hatch cover with a manual gauge to monitor dust concentration visually. Moreover, the ships’ holds can only be partially loaded with this method.
- Given the complexities and safety issues, most terminals opt not to load during rainfall and, as a result, grain companies estimate marine terminals in British Columbia lose 30 to 60 days of productivity per year due to rain. These inefficiencies and stoppages can negatively impact the broader transportation system, increasing anchorage utilization and railway congestion, particularly during periods of sustained rainfall over many days.
- While some stakeholders claim that terminals can load in the rain in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, this may be an oversimplification and very few terminals load moisture sensitive grain cargoes during rainfall. Quorum Corporation did carry out analysis, finding some key differences. The intensity, frequency and duration of the rain in Vancouver is different than in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, resulting in terminals and grain companies making different commercial decisions. The fee structure imposed by marine terminals on ships at their berths is different, and while in the short term incentivizes some loading during rainfall, in the longer-term results in counter fees built into market rates for shipment negatively impacting overall competitiveness. Consequently, the reputation for quality and market price of grains from the Pacific Northwest of the United States suffer. Additionally, past large capital investments in fixed canopies do not work well and only add a limited capability for loading in rain.
Working Group
- In December 2022, Transport Canada convened a working group consisting of the BC Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA), International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), grain terminals, stevedores, and Agriculture and Agri Food Canada to better understand the challenges and identify, explore, and implement short- and long-term solutions.
- The grain loading working group met several times and identified some general approaches worth exploring in the spring of 2023. Transport Canada continues to work directly with a smaller group of nominees from industry (terminal operators, stevedores).
- The Department has been working with this smaller group, as well as some individual operators, to advance the development of several promising concepts and we are currently testing 3-5 prototypes. Some tests are being carried out at terminals while others are at alternate sites.
- The approaches being innovated focus on the ability to load a vessel without requiring people to go up on the hatch cover, which is important to achieve given the long history of conflict and mistrust between employers and employees over working at height requirements.
Next Steps
- The concepts being advanced include processes, innovation of technology and new equipment, custom fabrication, the repurposing of existing technology, and facilitation of trial support from the Canadian Grain Commission, and other authorities. Transport Canada’s Innovation Centre is supporting (with funding) the experiments and tests to bring concepts to readiness.
- As concepts reach a level of readiness and testing completes, there will be a need to develop operational procedures and training programs. This process can take a number of months to complete. But it would be reasonable to believe that some methods may be implemented prior to the grain shipping season start in September.
- The objective is to recapture operational time across multiple terminals during some or all the roughly 30 to 60 days of rainfall per year in Vancouver, while also improving safety by eliminating the need for people to work at a height.
- While there is no single solution, a combination of approaches may result in significant efficiency improvements. In a highly competitive sector, solutions may benefit marine terminals inequitably based on their capacity, equipment, location, and design. It is likely that a variety of mixed views will be expressed about solutions as they begin to be unveiled and trialed.