(Bloomberg) -- Thousands of tons of wheat and canola is stranded in Canada after rain has hampered deliveries at the country’s largest port during peak shipping season.
Grain terminals in Vancouver are having trouble loading and unloading grain amid heavy, persistent rain in British Columbia, creating a backlog of trains that are unable to deliver to the port, said David Przednowek, assistant vice president of grain for Canadian National Railway Co. At least 12 fully-loaded unit trains, carrying more than 100,000 tons, are parked on the Prairies waiting to deliver, he said.
“Nobody wants to see those trains idle,” Przednowek said Friday by phone. “Everybody wants to move it. We just can’t.”
So far this month, 2.42 centimeters (0.95 inch) have fallen in Vancouver, following 8.87 centimeters in October --all of which fell in the last 11 days of the month, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. It’s harder to load ships during storms -- grain needs to be protected to prevent it from getting wet, which can cause it to rot or sprout in transit.
“The rain in Vancouver has been impacting the terminals’ ability to load vessels lately,” Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association, which represents the nation’s biggest grain exporters, said in an email. “They need to shut down the loading process and wait for a break in the weather during which time they load as much as possible.”
Transport Delays
The situation is an about-face for Canada’s largest railway, which moved record tons of grain in October and comes just as Canadian farmers have harvested one of the biggest wheat crops ever. In the US, low water levels along the Mississippi River have hampered shipments of corn and soybeans, threatening to cause a buildup of supplies. The world is looking to North America and elsewhere to replace shipments of grains and sunflower oil from the Black Sea that have been curbed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A year ago, an epic deluge caused flooding and landslides that cut off Vancouver, Canada’s third-largest city. The storms destroyed highways and washed out train tracks, halting the flow of grain, coal and other commodities for export.
Heavy rain across the region could drop up to 4 inches of rain, and in many areas this will be falling on snow in the mountains raising the risk of landslides, said Paul Walker, a meteorologist for commercial-forecaster AccuWeather Inc. Along with the rain, high winds have raked the area, adding to transportation troubles.
The rain should taper off late Friday in Vancouver, but another system is set to hit the area on Sunday, Walker said. This new storm could arrive further south in the US states of Washington and Oregon but it needs to be watched.
(Updates with comment from grain association in fifth paragraph)
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