The 2020 navigation season officially began Thursday with the arrival of the tug Sharon M1 and barge Huron Spirit.

The vessel combination came abeam of the Mission Pier entrance at 9:30 p.m. local time, port officials said in a news release.

As the first vessel to arrive in Thunder Bay after the spring opening of the Soo Locks, it received the port’s annual ‘Top Hat’ honour.

Owned and operated by Burlington, Ont.-based McKeil Marine, the tug-barge discharged about 5,000 tonnes of calcium chloride brine solution at Pollard Highway Products on the Kaministiquia River.

Thunder Bay’s Top Hat honour is usually captured by a bulk vessel taking on its first grain shipment of the season. That was nearly the case again; the bulker Algoma Sault arrived in port for grain just hours after the Sharon M1/Huron Spirit.

Another bulker that wintered in Thunder Bay, CSL Welland, has also departed the port with grain.

‘Navigational conditions’

The St. Lawrence Seaway also began its navigation season last week, two days earlier than in 2019, as the Welland Canal portion of the waterway opened Tuesday (March 24), with the transit of the NACC Argonaut.

The seaway’s Montreal/Lake Ontario section is due to open Wednesday (April 1) in a “hybrid approach” which the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. said will allow the waterway’s operators to move “record volumes” of water out of Lake Ontario, “to provide relief to lakeshore communities battered by high water levels.”

The re-opening of Thunder Bay provides another option for exporting grain from Western Canada. From the perspective of grain growers at the eastern end of the Prairies, railway car cycle times are faster because the Lakehead port is much closer than Vancouver or Prince Rupert.

Thunder Bay shipped nine million tonnes of cargo in 2019, with grain accounting for nearly 8.3 million tonnes of that total.

Grain stocks in Thunder Bay, as of March 22, came in at 693,700 tonnes, according to Canadian Grain Commission data.

As for the St. Lawrence, about 38 million tonnes of commodities and goods travelled on the seaway during its 2019 season, well down from the 10-year high of 40.9 million tonnes reported in 2018.

International trade tensions, adverse weather affecting Prairie grain harvests, and “difficult navigational conditions” due to high water flows on the St. Lawrence River itself all went to limit total cargo volumes on the waterway in 2019, the SLSMC said.

— Reporting for Glacier FarmMedia by Allan Dawson, MarketsFarm and GFM Network staff.

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The lockout was immediately lifted and the union also withdrew its strike notice, according to separate statements by the B.C. Maritime Employers Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Canada.

Details of a tentative agreement on a new contract, reached with the help of federal mediation, were not released.

At issue was the employers association’s introduction of automation that could eliminate jobs, the union said.

The port is a major gateway to Asia for Canadian goods, moving large volumes of coal, grain, potash and forest products.

Despite its short duration, the lockout led to lineups of trucks outside terminals and vessels being rerouted to other West Coast ports, said Joel Neuheimer, vice president of international trade and transportation at Forest Products Association of Canada, whose members include Canfor Corp and West Fraser Timber.

Cruise ships and licensed grain terminals were not affected by the lockout.

The employers association represents 55 companies, such as ship owners and terminal operators at the port.

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa.

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Canada exported only 129,000 tonnes of canola during the latest reporting period, which compares with the previous five-week average of 194,800 tonnes.

Total canola exports during the crop-year-to-date of 5.908 million tonnes are in line with the previous year’s pace of 5.922 million.

Wheat exports during the week were also on the slower side, with 244,800 tonnes exported, about 100,000 tonnes off the previous five-week average.

A total of seven grain vessels were cleared in Vancouver during the week ended Tuesday, according to the latest Grain Monitoring Program report compiled by the Quorum Corporation. That was down from 10 vessels cleared the previous week, but still helped take the total lineup down to 25 vessels from 27.

Total unloads on the West Coast of 3,971 rail cars were down by 23 per cent from the previous four-week average and about 39 per cent below the same week a year ago, according to the weekly Quorum report.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“Everybody is looking more at food safety and health safety — there’s more scrutiny all the time with all the chemicals that we’re using,” said Jim Smolik, assistant chief commissioner of the Canadian Grain Commission.

He cited China as an example. The grain commission randomly samples grain vessels leaving the country for more than 120 different chemicals, but China is testing imports for more than 400 chemicals, Smolik said at the Making the Grade workshop in late July.

And what’s allowed — called maximum residue limits — is also in flux. Some nations use the internationally recognized standard called the Codex Alimentarius, but others don’t.

“As countries choose to follow Codex limits or choose to follow their own, we have to be cognizant that the more we’re finding as far as residues in grain, the more that they’re aware of it as well,” said Smolik. “They have the testing capabilities, and they’re going to continue to test.”

In countries that don’t have a maximum residue limit for certain chemicals, the default will be zero, he said.

“Zero means zero, and it can become hugely costly to the industry if we get locked out of certain countries.”

In the spotlight

This year, producers delivering grain may be asked to declare in writing whether they’ve used quinclorac (the active ingredient in several different herbicides) or chlormequat (the active ingredient in plant growth regulators such as Engage Agro’s Manipulator.)

“With chlormequat, one of the issues is that it just hasn’t got the approvals in the United States yet, so that’s why these companies are asking that you sign that waiver,” said Smolik.

“If they start shipping into the United States and it’s not approved there, it becomes a market access issue.”

Glyphosate is also facing heavier scrutiny after the World Health Organization issued a claim that it is “probably” a carcinogen.

Because of that, producers “have to read and follow label instructions,” said Smolik. Like other chemicals, glyphosate enters and remains in the plant at low levels, and early application of the chemical can compound that.

“Monsanto’s instruction is that anything over 30 per cent head moisture is going to be retained in the seed,” said Smolik. “If you’re spraying, even though the majority of the crop is 30 per cent or under, those areas that are green are certainly not under 30 per cent.

“The application rates and crop maturity are key if you’re going to be applying that.”

And Canada’s trade partners may start pushing maximum residue limits lower and lower if they see increases in residues, said Smolik.

“These are the things that are going to start to impact our ability to sell grain into the world markets,” he said.

“These are all tools that you guys use that are registered in Canada, but if they don’t have approvals in other countries at this point, it becomes a market access issue.”

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