A second Pacific gateway option is being touted for Canadian exporters who want to bypass Vancouver to shave time in getting their goods to market while capitalizing on new opportunities in Asian-Pacific markets.

Jeff Burghardt, president and CEO of Prince Rupert Grain and chairman of the Northwest Corridor Development Corp., says the Port of Rupert is moving ahead with ambitious expansions plans and a new container facility - along with Kitimat and Stewart, it's one of three deepwater, ice-free ports that are part of the Northwest Corridor.

The corridor is an area that spans a large chunk of the four western provinces and encompasses a modern, uncongested transportation network.

But challenges remain, Burghardt told a recent function hosted in Edmonton by Growing Alberta, an industry-driven body that builds understanding and awareness with Albertans on the agriculture and food industry.

Jeff Burghardt

"It will certainly take further work but I can tell you, five years ago nobody thought a shovel would be in the ground and today we're 12 months away from having this new container facility operating," said Burghardt.

The Northwest Corridor provides the shortest sea/land transportation corridor between the growing North American heartland - Edmonton, Winnipeg, Minneapolis and Chicago - and Asia-Pacific markets via northern B.C. ports.

It encompasses 1.3 million square kilometres or about 13 per cent of Canada's land mass, and has two million residents in northern B.C. and central and northern Alberta.

Challenges include the fact that container firms get higher prices for goods they import into North America while the return market - sending product from Western Canada - is not as profitable. Raising global awareness of the possibilities of the port of Prince Rupert is another issue, Burghardt noted.

"I think that initially that (getting the empty containers filled) is going to be the challenge," he said. "We have to find a way. " Access to perishable products and containers is likely, because they move at such a premium, he adds. "(But) whether you in fact can get them to Edmonton or to Calgary and onto a rail line, that will be the main challenge."

CN operates an intermodal freight yard in Edmonton, "so hopefully they will allow and gather product and put it onto their train system moving to Prince Rupert," Burghardt says.

"But I'm thinking that for large agricultural opportunities, malt barley, for some of the alfalfa producers and some of the other producers, we're going to have to work very hard to develop a large enough volume that we can attract the interest of the container lines, in the early years, to stop at some of the smaller communities."

A lack of congestion in the smaller communities within the northwest corridor will help with efficient, quick turnarounds for both CN and the container lines, Burghardt says.

He also says progress is being made in putting Prince Rupert on the map.

"CN is being very good at marketing and suggesting around the world that the Port of Prince Rupert can do great things for shippers," he said.

"We are making substantial efforts overseas on different trade missions and with different trade groups. We are having numerous visitors to Prince Rupert to show them the facilities."

The new Fairview Container Terminal will open in 2007 and will move 500,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) per year.

It's designed to efficiently handle the largest concentration of intermodal rail business. Phase II, to be completed by 2010, will allow the terminal to handle two million TEUs annually.

Growing Alberta chair Art Froehlich says the developments are good news for the agricultural and food sector - while also being a bit of an eye-opener.

"Prince Rupert does export a fair bit of agricultural product through Prince Rupert Grain, but I think over the next two or three years we're going to see some significant enhancements," said Froehlich.

Agricultural producers could export more specialty grains or other crops through Prince Rupert and provide access to another container port facility, instead of relying on the often-congested Port of Vancouver.

"I would suspect that most people in our agricultural community are only somewhat aware of Prince Rupert, but certainly are not aware of the potential it is going to offer the industry in the future," added Froehlich. "We tend to think of Vancouver all the time as our gateway to export markets."

If the port can move a container from, for example, Red Deer to Japan two days faster, "that's two days more of shelf life for that product once it's there," notes Burghardt.

It's not just Alberta food producers who will benefit, he adds.

"I think that it means that in the major urban centres (in the western provinces) there's going to be the opportunity for retail goods that are coming in from overseas to be delivered a bit more quickly and efficiently," he says.

"Even more importantly, as we continue to evolve what the Prairie economy is as we move to more value-added products, we should be able to ship those to world markets," which would spell a stronger, more diversified economy for the West.

(Laura Severs can be reached at laura@businessedge.ca)