Thunder Bay Terminals

Contact Details P.O. Box 1800, Station F McKellar Island Thunder Bay, ON P7C 5J7 Tel (807) 625-7800 Fax (807) 623-5749

Corporate Backgrounder

• Located at the head of Lake Superior in the City of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Thunder Bay Terminals is a wholly owned subsidiary of Russel Metals Inc., a publicly traded Canadian company. 
  
  
• Established in 1978, Thunder Bay Terminals provides a transportation link between rail and vessel for the movement of coal from mines in Western Canada to Ontario and other domestic and international markets. 
  
  
• The Terminal was originally built at the time of the oil crisis in the 1970’s to ensure that there would be a reliable flow of Western Canadian coal to Ontario Hydro providing a secure all-Canadian link for Ontario Hydro’s coal requirements. 
  
  
• Thunder Bay Terminal’s expansion in 1981 brought the addition of a dedicated dry-bulk handling facility for direct rail-to-vessel trans-shipments of most free-flowing dry bulk material including both metallurgical and thermal coal, potash, petroleum coke, liquid edible oils, urea, coarse grains and various other agricultural products. 
  
  
• Thunder Bay Terminals has the ability to tranship coal from Western Canada and Powder River Basin (in Wyoming and Montana) onto Great Lakes vessels for transport up the St. Lawrence Seaway.
  
   
• Deregulation in the North American utility marketplace and response to Phase II of the Clean Air Act in the United States has created tremendous growth in the utilization of Powder River Basin coal as well as low sulphur Western Canadian coals. That growing pressure is enabling Thunder Bay Terminals to become an expanded and strategic gateway to the Great Lakes. 
  
  Thunder Bay Terminals has an 820-foot-long berth capable of loading vessels to full Seaway draft.Thunder Bay Terminals employs state-of-the art technology which allows lake ships in the order of 30,000 tonnes to be routinely loaded in 6.5 hours. The site allows Thunder Bay Terminals to ensure that its customers’ product is properly segregated. Special handling procedures virtually eliminate the possibility of product contamination.
  
  
• Coal is delivered to the Terminal by unit trains by both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways. 
  
  
• Customer Base includes: Ontario Power Corporation, Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian National Railway, Luscar Ltd., Elk Valley Coal Corporation, The Mosaic Company, IMC Kalium, and Agrium.
  
  
• Thunder Bay Terminals site consists of almost 300 acres of land and has a ground storage capacity of approximately two million tonnes. 
  
  
• The annual throughput capacity of the Terminal is 11 million tonnes. 
  
  
• The Terminal employs approximately 35 full-time workers in Thunder Bay.
  
  

A Russel Metals Company