Terminal build complete, Wolverine Marine Fuelling looks to 2024 start for Prince Rupert operations

One more item off the Port of Prince Rupert checklist of services offered is about to be checked off, with Wolverine Terminals announcing that their construction phase is complete and Operations for marine fuelling for visiting vessels will commence in the new year.

The notice is a short entry on the Wolverine Marine Terminal website.

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First announced in September of 2017, the Terminal proposal has navigated over five years of choppy international times and a number of regulatory requirements to get the finish line for the Calgary based company.

The project has seen a few delays towards their original launch date of mid to late 2019, the actual construction phase for the work did not get underway u til December of 2021.

Site location of the new Wolverine Marine Fuelling Terminal

Once in operation, the Wolverine Facility located along the shoreline where the CN Aquatrain facility once was, will be a key element of the Port's efforts to increase shipping out of the Prince Rupert Gateway.  

The port until now was one of the only major global ports that did not offer marine fuelling services. Something that Port officials have noted a few times through their Annual Public Meeting sessions. 

The most recent APM held this summer, provided for an update on the progress for Wolverine and how it would add to the global footprint for Port operations.

"This is about filling a service gap that has existed through my 25 years here.

 It's unusual for a port of our size not to have bunkering capabilities and it's been a competitive  disadvantage for some time, with vessels having to divert, you know go to Port Angeles or Vancouver  to bunker before returning to Asia.

This is also the start, we're also looking ahead at our carbon reduction plan of what we need to look at as far as  fuel transition. Whether that be methanal, or we talked about LNG potentially but really want to create that sort of capacity and use it as a base of  accelerating our decarbonization in the future.

But  that critical piece of filling that gap on not just the bunkering capability, but meeting the low sulphur spec is critically important. Because there have been all sorts of work arounds that we've seen on the West Coast, not just in Canada but on the continent, because of the lack of low sulphur fuel availability. 

And there's been other tech, you know closed loop and open loop scrubbers and other things that come out of that lack of supply.

We're going to close that supply and  move from a  service gap to a Prince Rupert competitive edge with this project" -- Prince Rupert Port Authority President and CEO Shaun Stevenson at the 2023 Annual Public Meeting 

You can learn more about how the operation will look and work here.

More on Wolverine and a look back its progress through the years can be reviewed through our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.