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NTCL scuttles Kivalliq dry cargo service

Competing shipping firms bid for contract

JIM BELL

The Inuit-owned Northern Transportation Company Ltd. will close its Churchill terminal and end its decades-old barge service to the Kivalliq region.

Cliff Abraham, the president of NTCL, made the announcement Feb. 13, saying the company can’t find a way of running a dry-cargo-only sealift service without losing money.

"We don’t take it lightly at all. We went through quite a process in the last couple of months here working on the aspects of a standalone, dry-cargo delivery model out of Churchill. We couldn’t come to a stable, economically viable operation," said Chris Coté, NTCL’s marketing manager in Nunavut.

The company will shut its Kivalliq office in Rankin Inlet and "demobilize" its terminal in Churchill. NTCL will keep its Iqaluit office, however.

Thirty-four employees, most of them seasonal workers based in Churchill, will either lose their jobs or possibly be transferred to NTCL’s operations in the Northwest Territories.

Onshore workers are represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, while barge crews are represented by the Seamen’s International Union.

Kivalliq residents won’t likely find out who their next dry cargo shipper will be until after the Government of Nunavut announces the results of a request for proposals issued earlier this year seeking a company or companies to operate a dry cargo service in the Baffin and Kivalliq regions.

Under that RFP, proponents may make bids that specify Churchill, Montreal or both as a point of origin for shipments to the Kivalliq.

The closing date for that RFP was extended until Feb. 18. The GN is expected to decide on the contract by the end of March.

One company that will definitely not get that contract is NTCL.

"NTCL will not be putting in any bids for any part of the GN’s dry cargo contract," Coté said.

However, an NTCL ally, Nunavut Sealink and Supply Inc., is expected to respond to the RFP. NSSI is a partnership between Transport Désgagnés and Arctic Co-operatives Ltd.

Two other joint-venture groupings, Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping, and Nunavut Ocean Transport, are also expected to bid for all or part of the Baffin-Kivalliq dry cargo service.

Last summer, NTCL lost a bid to renew a five-year-old contract to supply fuel products to communities in the Baffin and Kivalliq regions. Under a deal signed Jan. 14, the GN will buy fuel from Shell Canada, and ship it to the two regions through Montreal or Churchill.

NTCL suffered an even bigger shock last November, when the GN announced that the Woodward Group of Labrador, and not NTCL, would get a contract to ship Shell’s products to Baffin and Kivalliq.

Stunned NTCL officials then announced they would reassess their Kivalliq dry cargo service. That work is now done, and the company has found that a dry-cargo- only service in the Kivalliq is not economical.

However, Coté said NTCL will maintain a presence in the eastern Arctic, and that the company will keep its Nortran packaging facility in Montreal.

"That’s another contract that’s due here shortly. So once this carrier service contract is complete, then the GN will know where to deliver the marshalled and crated products. I think they’re waiting for that to be put out before they do the marshalling and packaging contract," Coté said.

NTCL is a subsidiary of Norterra, which in turn is owned 50-50 by Nunavut’s Nunasi Corp. and the Inuvialuit Development Corp. of the western Arctic.

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