Built For Speed
A 24/7 workforce, a floating warehouse, and 3 million metric tonnes of French fries and other food products are next on the agenda for a resurgent Port Saint John
Port Saint John may soon be a 24/7 operation to accommodate increased trade flow between Canada, Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
DP World, which operates Port Saint John’s container terminal, has asked the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 673 to hire a minimum of 100 workers in 2025, with continued job growth expected in 2026.
That’s in addition to the 100 jobs expected at the new Americold facility by 2029, now under construction at the western mouth of the Saint John Harbour, next to the shuttered American Iron and Metal (AIM) facility.
“We have customers who want to grow,” said DP World Canada CEO Doug Smith during his May 29th presentation at Port Days, Port Saint John’s annual convention.
He expects an increase in potash shipments via Saskatchewan-based Canpotex, is targeting 3 million metric tonnes of food once the Americold facility is operational, and Hapag-Lloyd is bullish on further increasing bulk shipments.
“We’re willing to take the long-term view and get a floating barge in here for 24/7 operations,” said Smith, referring to what is essentially a floating storage facility that increases space and cargo handling efficiency.
Smith likes to refer to Saint John as an uncut gem, a congestion-free ocean port that has two things the world desperately needs right now: space and speed.
It’s got space because the 141-hectare federal complex has been underutilized for decades, caused in part by the decline of New Brunswick’s forestry sector, and a reordering of global trade patterns to larger ports.
Now trade patterns are changing again, this time to Port Saint John’s favour, provided it and its rail and trucking partners and ILA members can move goods in and out of the port in record time.
“We need to acknowledge that the pressures that created this gem have intensified in ways we never thought it would. We need to diversify our trading partners to ensure New Brunswick and Canada both continue to grow, and we need to do this at speed,” said Smith.
“This requires evolving from historically comfortable practices, where we have the luxury of time to be able to unload vessels over a couple of days and stop operations at night. We now need to ensure our productivity levels match up to industry standards.”
Known as dwell time, shippers closely monitor these numbers. In January, Port Saint John’s cumulative dwell time was 11 days; today it sits at 6 days.
Smith expects the cumulative number to decrease even further; since mid-April, dwell times have been under 4 days, averaging 3.5 days.1
These are the type of numbers that Saint John-Kennebecasis MP Wayne Long, the Secretary of State for the Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions, and Premier Susan Holt need to help bolster their argument for nation-building projects for New Brunswick.
“We have this asset that needs to get connected into everything that Canada is doing,” said Holt during her time on the Port Days stage.
“Ottawa, I think, cannot wait to come and support the transformation of Simms Corner so that we can move more goods more quickly in a less disruptive way, and get them out to places further afield.”
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Transformation is a good word to describe what is in the works for Saint John’s wonky west side intersection.
The price tag is now estimated at $100 million for an overpass between the Reversing Falls Bridge and the entrance to Lancaster Mall to elevate vehicles and allow trains to run unimpeded between the Port’s container terminal, J.D. Irving’s Logistics Terminal on Dever Road and points beyond.
Between it and the increase in activity at the Port’s container terminal, life on the West Side is about to undergo a substantial change, harkening back to a time when Saint John could truly claim to be a port city.
Port Saint John CEO Craig Bell Estabrooks was raised on those stories. When he came to work at the Port 13 years ago, his first job was to try and put together a business case to conduct a feasibility study to see if it was worth investing in Saint John.
“I have to say, early days, the economic case was a little shakier than it is sitting here today,” he said as he welcomed the standing-room only audience to the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre Marco Polo ballroom, named for the clipper ship built and launched in 1851 a few blocks away that was once the fastest in the world.
“We knew, if we could renew the infrastructure and put a good asset together, that spirit, that history of Saint John, that value proposition that we had for decades, centuries, would come back.”
In 2020 the Port got its funding, about $250 million to date from the Canadian and New Brunswick governments, to undertake its West Side Modernization Project.
With the project now complete, Bell Estabrooks says he and the Port staff have days when they still can’t believe it’s all come to fruition.
“There are some days when you get to the parking lot and you look across at it and you still think you're looking at a rendering, because it doesn't feel real all the time,” he said.
“The change is dramatic, and the pace is a whole new level.”
Other Stories in Our Saint John at the Crossroads Coverage
Seeing the Big Picture: PHOTO ESSAY: Canada's 'transformative' national trade corridor is right around the corner – literally – for people who live near the railways and roadways driving industrial development in Saint John.
Saint John’s New Trade Frontier: Tracks, trucks, and trade: The port city is building a new logistics future that will require significant coordination across the region – and cooperation closer to home.
Saint John’s Second Act: Global alliances, private investments, and cold chain innovations are transforming the Port of Saint John, but the real test will come inland.
Will Saint John Get on Board? Talk of a possible $70-million overpass for Simms Corner brings Canada's newly assertive trade agenda home to New Brunswick's Port City.
The Corner At The Centre of Things: Canada's muscular new trade agenda is picking up speed; are the neighbourhoods in and around Simms Corner in West Saint John ready for what's coming down the track?
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Port Saint John, “Dwell Times,” accessed June 3, 2025, https://www.sjport.com/dwell-times.