daftandbarmy
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Manitoba to the rescue...
The Arctic
- Thread starter Kirkhill
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lenaitch
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A good proposal. Doesn't help with Asia markets though. Churchill has several things going for it no other Arctic proposal does: It has an existing rail/electric corridor, an existing deep water port and an existing community. The caveat is the seasonality of the shipping route and whether than can be be reasonably overcome or a customer country can develop sufficient storage facilities.
RangerRay
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Churchill is still seriously isolated though. There is no road access, flights are expensive and rail is slightly less expensive but is excruciatingly slow. I believe the rail line will need significant improvements if it is to support this increase in activity. Also, you’ll need to incentivize people to move there to have no real, or an extremely short, summer and pay through the nose for food that isn’t pop and chips.
treat it the way the mining companies handle their remote locations: 2 crews rotate monthly with those who are full time residents running the place
lenaitch
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True, but what arctic/near arctic location or proposed location isn't.
I would assume if Churchill were to be a NG terminal, it would be fed via pipeline and not rail. Perhaps I assume wrong. As far as I know, improvements to the rail corridor are happening as we speak.
With rail service, the cost of food, etc. is no where near those in remote arctic communities. According to this, COL is only 4% above the national average (Thunder Bay is +5%).
This would be for the European Market as primary. The Asian market could be added. Depending on who's paying.
CFB Cold Lake was isolated not that many years ago with a seasonal road.
Tuktoyaktuk is futher north and equal issues with building a road and they did it.
The only reason the road has not been built is need and want. Run a pipeline, fix the rail line and the road will come.
People.live and work in isolated places all the time. Money talks.
FJAG
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All the years that I lived in Manitoba, the viability of Churchill as a port was always a major political issue for the governing party. The key problem has always been a question of how do you make it an enterprise that provides a reasonable, or any, return on investment to its operators (and those of the rail line leading to it). The answer was that you couldn't. Any business model was always dependent on massive subsidies, grants or whatever from both provincial and federal coffers.
Here's and article from just before the rail line shut down that highlights the issues.
Regardless of the commodity to be put through the port, the limitation will always be its actual shipping season. Betting on global warming to extend the season is a mug's game if one considers that the world is spending trillions of dollars in trying to stop that very same global warming. To count on a longer open season is gambling that the world will not succeed. Maybe that's a reasonable gamble but regardless, whatever money is spent on building and maintaining the infrastructure (note that I am not saying making the port and rai line self sufficient) could be spent on our ice-free coasts to create year-round terminals that will provide profits for the economy as a whole.
I generally like having a vision for things that we could and should do. Churchill isn't one of them.
$0.02
Here's and article from just before the rail line shut down that highlights the issues.
Regardless of the commodity to be put through the port, the limitation will always be its actual shipping season. Betting on global warming to extend the season is a mug's game if one considers that the world is spending trillions of dollars in trying to stop that very same global warming. To count on a longer open season is gambling that the world will not succeed. Maybe that's a reasonable gamble but regardless, whatever money is spent on building and maintaining the infrastructure (note that I am not saying making the port and rai line self sufficient) could be spent on our ice-free coasts to create year-round terminals that will provide profits for the economy as a whole.
I generally like having a vision for things that we could and should do. Churchill isn't one of them.
$0.02
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