du duct, but to customers around the. world

Too

its. critical link in securing the. hich
quality bleached kraft pulp produced —

i at Skeena: Pulp. —

~The “Port of Skeena Pulp!” was -
“originally a, deep sea .wharf built by

in "American Armed Forces during World
« -Warllto-ship t materials tothe campaign
omMpany: ‘and: handles: only one pro- |

“In. the Aleutian Islands,
Modified In the 1950s by the

port o tinge Buper

woh

" Celanese Corporation of Canada; who

built the original sulphite mill on Watson |

Island, ‘the wharf was. extensively
destroyed by fire In the mid-41960s and
rebuilt In reinforced concrete. The last of

- fhe orginal wharf was replaced during

the mill's 4988 modemization program.
The concrete wharf is 62 feet wide
and 864 feet long, and runs parallel to

“The Skeena Pulp mill’s port handlies o over 400 000 tonnes of high quality bleached kraft ft pulp per year,
‘destined for international markets.

~~ the shoreline in a north-south direction:

about 700 feet out into Porpoise
Harbour.

Now in operation 24 hours a day
seven days a week, the port handles
over 400,000 tonnes of pulp per ‘year, or
90 per cent of the mill's total annual pro-
duction capacity. (The balance is ship-

. ped by rail to Midtec Paper Corpora-
tlon, a Repap Enterprises’ division in»
- Wisconsin.)

a> Flye- specially. designed “tractors

-knewn-as “Ottawas” are used to haul
_ the packaged pulp from the mill to the
whart on trailer loaders capable of hauk-
ing about 35 metric tonnes each. Actual
ship loading Is the responsibility of
longshoremen and the shipping .
companies.
CUSTOMER ACCESS
Compared to southern B.C. ports,
Skeena Pulp’s port Is 440 nautical miles
Closer to most Asian markets, meaning

_ a potential savings in salling time of up

to one and a half days in each direc-
tlon. As the closest North American pro-
ducer of premium grade pulp to Japan, |
Skeena exports. approximately 30 per
cent of its production to that country,
with Its other primary markels in Europe
and the Far East. .

The most frequent visitors fo the mill's -
port are ships belonging to Gearbulk
Shipping Canada Ltd., headquartered
in Bergen,-Norway. The largest of these
vessels are over 500 feet long (about the
length of two football fields) with a beam.
of 95 feet and a deadweight of almost
42,000 tonnes. Despite thelr size, the
ships are surprisingly efficient working
vessels, manned with a crew of only 20
people.

Traffic to and from the port Is cons-
tant and to some extent not totally
predictable. It takes between three and
four days to load each ship, with
scheduling complicated by the fact that
arrival times for deep sea vessels, sail-
Ing at 13.5 knots per hour and subject
to adverse weather conditions at sea,
can only ba approximated and not tied oO
fo exact days.and times. ES

‘Inthe course of a year, three regular
loaders will tle up at the dock each
month to take pulp destined for -
Japan/Korea, Europe/the United -
Kingdom and the Mediterranean. In ad-
dition, one loader arrives each quarter
for shlpments to Southeast Asia including -
Indonesia, Talwan and Thailand, with & -
second loader each quarter destined
for China,