$8 million to double CanEst exports

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra was in the city this morning to announce an investment of $8 million at the Port of Montreal, for an infrastructure project aimed at doubling the export of DG CanEst Transit, which exports Canadian grain to worldwide.

This investment is part of CanEst’s « phase three » project, worth a total of $18 million. It follows a recommendation from the Task Force on the Supply Chain (GTCA), which tabled its final report on October 6.

The money will be used to ensure traffic optimization in the yard and better grain cleaning, in addition to the addition of dewatering lines and container loading and handling capacity.

The project aims to unclog the supply system which “experienced two crises” in 2021 and 2022, according to Martin Imbleau, CEO of the Port of Montreal. A first faced with the lack of production, then a second because of overcrowded warehouses. He draws the lesson from this that the problem is a “lack of infrastructure to ensure the fluidity of the entire chain”.

The announcement was made on the site of the former Silo 3, now owned by the CanEst group. The place evokes for Mr. Imbleau the time when the port of Montreal was “the most important grain port in the world”. The CEO says that through investments like today’s, the port “is regaining its former glory, but in a different business model”.

This measure will have impacts in Quebec, on the soybean industry in particular, but also in Western Canada, which uses these infrastructures to export its grains. It should create about fifty jobs in two years, according to Marc-Aurel Clapperton, general manager of DG CanEst Transit.