The port of Trois-Rivières, in Mauricie, is preparing another major investment project with the construction of a wharf and the repair of another for a hundred million dollars.
The closing of the basin in which ships could enter for almost a century at the foot of the grain silos will however be the highlight of this project.
The port indentation will be completely backfilled, since restoring it would have been too costly.
The redone wharf is the one mainly occupied by the aluminum giant Alcoa, which for 30 years has been transhipping raw material for its Deschambault smelter there.
Of the hundred million dollars invested in total, a few dozen will be invested by the company for the installation of new, more efficient, more ecological and dust-free transshipment equipment.
“The only solution we have to redo this section, which is 90 years old, is to close the basin. We also arrive with customers who are there and at the end of the contract, so it’s a good time to renegotiate and they have equipment that is old and needs to be replaced,” said Gaétan Boivin, president and CEO of the port. of Trois-Rivieres.
The planned transformations are a concern for the 35 grain elevator workers who subcontract transloading services on behalf of Alcoa. They fear that the company will do without them in the long term and hire its own staff.
This project is being carried out in parallel with that of Cap sur 2030, which provides for the construction of a new terminal costing 130 million dollars.