Hanam Canada Corporation

Empty shipping  containers

About 20% of the containers exported from Vancouver pass through one of 10 container storage yards listed in Exhibit 1. About one third of the overall empty container storage capacity in Delta and Vancouver is directly at the terminals and two thirds is off site. In Los Angeles and Long Beach there is ample storage for empty containers on the marine terminal site.

Exhibit 1        Container storage yards in Vancouver

Exporters obtain empty containers from shipping lines, container manufacturers or leasing companies. The containers come from import distribution centers, marine terminals or from container storage yards. About 90% of the containers are owned by shipping companies although major crop, forest products and mine concentrate exporters also have their own containers. For example, some of the barley moving through Columbia Containers, newsprint from Catalyst Paper and mine concentrates from Teck Cominco are shipped in exporter owned containers. Some major importers such as Canadian Tire also have their own containers.

Most empty containers come from Toronto and Chicago. CN Rail has crop stuffing stations at Saskatoon and Edmonton. CP Rail has container filling stations in Regina and Calgary. With assistance from Transport Canada, CP’s Regina container yard is being relocated to a new larger site west of the city. TW Commodities operates container stuffing stations for chick peas and lentils on CP Rail near Swift Current. Kleyson Transport, Winnipeg, operates container filling stations in Saskatoon, Edmonton and Calgary.

Canadian crop exporters can buy a used 20-foot container approved by the American Bureau of Shippers for $1,400 and a 40-foot one for $2,400 including duty and customs clearance. In Los Angeles, used 40 foot containers are cheaper, only $1,600. New containers cost $1,900 and $3,200 respectively in Vancouver. However, some farmers in Saskatchewan have been quoted $9,000 for a new ISO approved container. In Canada, the lease rate is $2.80 per day for 20-foot containers and $4.00 per day for 40-foot containers. Although it varies, the purchase price of a new container is about 20 percent and the lease price is about 2 percent of the value of the product contained.

Most containers have been used to import steel and auto parts and require cleaning and inspection. It is more difficult to get 20-foot containers in Regina and Saskatoon than in Vancouver because the containers are typically owned and controlled by the shipping lines. Hapag Lloyd is the main company exporting containerized Canadian agricultural products. Hamburg Sud and American President Lines also handle some agricultural products. However the larger import lines such as the CKHY and New World Alliance are less involved which is resulting in an imbalance in container flows for agricultural exporters in Western Canada.

Crop exporters require clean containers such as the ones used for importing retail goods. The 20 foot import containers are used for machinery, metals, and chemicals and may have oil stains or other residuals that farmers can not accept. This quality requirement imposes extra costs on the shipping company.  However, Cosco and others are committing increasing the number of containers in their barley, and flax seed trade.

Vanterm stores empty containers mainly for the CKHY Alliance and about 10% for OOCL. Centerm stores empty containers for the New World Alliance and does not seem to store a significant proportion of their containers off-site. The largest empty container storage site is Delta Container near Deltaport with about 4,000 containers in storage about half from Evergreen Shipping and 20 percent from NYK. The second largest storage yard is Coast 2000 in Richmond serving mainly OOCL, Yang Ming, and Hanjin. Delta Container and Coast 2000 are open until 8 and 9 PM respectively.

The ready availability of containers from these storage yards in the Vancouver area makes it convenient for exporters to bring their products to Vancouver and to transload them into containers there. Forest products are generally brought to Vancouver by truck or box car. Crops are brought to Vancouver by hopper car. Specialized companies then transfer these products into containers and take the containers to the marine terminals just in time prior to the ship leaving.