Group details plans for Nova Scotia terminal

Group details plans for Nova Scotia terminal A group called Melford International Terminals said Tuesday it would build a large new container terminal near the Canso Strait in Melford, Nova Scotia, about 180 miles up the coast from Halifax.
   Trident Holdings Inc., a finance and development company, is planning the terminal with partners that include Stevedoring Services of America, the Seattle-based terminal operator; Centerpoint Properties, a Joliet, Ill.-based industrial park and intermodal terminal developer; and Rail America, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based company that operates 42 short-line railroads in the United States and Canada.
   The terminal will be located in the 14,500-acre Melford Industrial Park in Guysborough County. Rail America operates the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway that connects with the Canadian National system.
   The terminal complex, which is expected to cost about $300 million, could open as soon as 2010. The initial capacity is to be 1.5 million TEUs, eventually to be expanded to 2.5 million TEUs.
   Developers believe that an opportunity exists for the terminal because of the big increase in container cargo from China and India, said Gordon MacDonald, special projects manager for the Guysborough County Regional Development Authority.
   While container shipping lines will eventually dictate what size ships call at the terminal and what their port rotations are, he said developers were aiming to accommodate very large container ships, noting the site is only about 500 meters from a channel with 60 to 65 feet of water depth.
   He said the port would be able to accommodate much larger ships than will eventually be able to transit even the new third set of locks in the Panama Canal.
   MacDonald said today that Halifax is used largely by container ship lines to “light load” ships bound for New York — remove enough containers that the vessels can call terminals in New Jersey or Staten Island.
   He said the Melford terminal's planners believe the terminal could appeal to carriers that want to discharge large numbers of boxes or their entire ship in Melford and then return to Asia — much as carriers in European services now make a single call in Montreal.