The cause in question is the repair of platform 17 and the construction of a new platform 16. Although the wait is longer than expected, the work should get underway this fall, if all goes well.
“We have big projects to announce in the coming weeks,” assures Gaétan Boivin, president and CEO of the Trois-Rivières Port Authority.
The latter gave a similar speech during the welcoming ceremony for the first ship of the year 2024. However, he believes that this time will be the right one.
“There are always delays because of environmental studies and financial arrangements,” he explains.
But who says work comes inconveniences… In this case, the port’s storage space – which is already operating at full capacity – will be affected.
“It will impact the amount of cargo we can handle and our revenue. But once it’s done, it will be well worth it.”
— Gaétan Boivin, President and CEO of the Trois-Rivières Port Authority
Culture change
The senior manager also presented the results of the year 2023 during the annual general meeting of the Trois-Rivières Port Authority, Thursday morning. Remember that the port welcomed 272 ships in 2023 and 4.2 metric tons of goods, for a net profit of $4.15 million.
The Port Authority also organized the visit of two ships in the winter of 2023, namely the bulk carrier Ferbec which had been forced to winter in Trois-Rivières and the icebreaker NGCC Amundsen of the Canadian Coast Guard.
If the visits were appreciated by those who took advantage of them, and who had the opportunity to chat with members of the crew, it was a combination of circumstances, confides Mr. Boivin. There is therefore no risk of making it a tradition.
The port CEO is also delighted with the pooling of research efforts of the ports of the province, established by the creation of the Center of Expertise in Port Logistics. This aims to enable researchers, ports and companies to carry out different projects to respond to the challenges that many of them are experiencing or could experience in the future.
“We need to transform the culture in ports. We must move from a sometimes conservative culture to a culture of innovation. This is what we have done in recent years and it has allowed us to work on around forty research projects. We were at the stage of creating such a center. It’s a way of pooling resources and doing more than if we worked individually on the same issues. It allows us to go further,” argues Mr. Boivin.
Decarbonization, always a priority
The port of Trois-Rivières has already started to tackle its impact on the environment, in the strategic plan Heading towards 2020, a trend which has continued with its successor, Heading towards 2030. However, it will be necessary to include in the provides the benefits of new technologies, believes Gaétan Boivin.
“We clearly saw the importance of ports during COVID. Everything closed, even the airports, but the ports remained open. So we have an extremely important role to play and we have a lot of work to do in decarbonization in the years to come. We are moving towards digitalization, artificial intelligence and it is in our interest, in ports, to get started on it straight away. The future is not in infrastructure, but in knowledge, digitalization, supply chains, decarbonization and the environment,” he says.
It is also this concern to reduce the carbon footprint of the maritime industry that the strategy developed by the Port Authority and Innovation and Economic Development (IDE) Trois-Rivières to accommodate cruise ships was revised. If prospecting to find ships to bring to Trois-Rivières was the responsibility of IDE, the port is now more involved.
“We’re going to get a little more involved. We were also clear about the type of ship we would like: we want cleaner ships. We are not in numbers, we are looking for quality. We did some studies to see where cruise ships were heading, we were looking for lines that were environmentally recognized. There wasn’t really any, but it’s starting to take shape,” explains Mr. Boivin.
Although, according to him, there is still work to be done to encourage more cruise passengers to leave the deck of their ship to enjoy the city center, he welcomes the efforts made by IDE to make Trois-Rivières an attractive destination.
“The Trois-Rivières destination is very, very well rated among cruise passengers,” rejoices the CEO of the Port Authority.
Remember that in 2023, 28 cruise ships called at Trois-Rivières, with 7,000 passengers and 5,000 crew members. In 2024, 30 such stopovers were planned, but four were canceled between June 1 and 19, according to the IDE Trois-Rivières website dedicated to tourism.
