By Andrew Macdonald
Maritime Business
The Port of Halifax has had a banner year as the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.
The port has a major impact on the Maritimes writ large, given the fact that 15,000 people work there directly or indirectly and its economic spin-offs tally $2.7 billion.
The Nova Scotia port’s year-end for 2021 saw it generate $46.6 million, up from $43.3 million in 2020. Profits, therefore, reached $13.2 million.
Overall cargo throughput last year hit new records, with close to 600,000 twenty-foot equivalent movements (TEUs, a shipping term used to describe shipping containers).
No cruise ships entered the port over the past two years, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of calls meant a lost revenue generator, but still, figures for last year were up over 2020. Cargo in 2021 was up 24 per cent over the previous year.
The port authority does not break down financial line items for the cargo side or the cruise ship side. Cargo is its main bread and butter.
The Halifax Port Authority has close to 80 employees at its headquarters near the South End Container Terminal, adjacent to Point Pleasant Park. The CEO is Captain Allan Gray, originally from Australia.
Gray began the job in November 2019. He has his mariner papers and spent 22 years working on container vessels out of Australia.
Significantly, Gray did not lay off any of the staffers at the port authority during the two-year pandemic.
Travel at the port authority in 2021 totalled $760,000, while the figure in 2020 tallied $168,000. Port directors under CEO Gray do not go abroad as they did during the tenure of former CEO Karen Oldfield.
Travel costs in the non-pandemic year of 2019 reached $602,000. Bank indebtedness in 2021 stood at $18.8 million, down from $20.1 million in 2020. The bank debt stood at $7.44 million in 2019.
Total leases held by the port generated $25.2 million. That figure stood at $22.9 million in 2020.
PSA Halifax recently signed two new 40-year leases to operate the South End and Fairview Cove container terminals. In recent weeks, PSA took over the latter terminal from Ceres. The bulk of the total lease payments would come from lease arrangements for the two-terminal operations.
The port authority under Captain Gray has ended the practice of one legal firm controlling the legal work for the port, going with multiple firms. Legal fees and consulting engineer work and other professional fees tallied slightly more than $1 million in 2021, down from the fees paid out in 2020, a figure which stood at $1.1 million.
Port projects
The port has several significant projects on the go for the future, including the removal of downtown trucks and the use of the CN Rail Cut to shuttle container boxes from the South End terminal to Fairview Cove.
That project has an overall cost of $50 million, and to date, $193,000 has been spent on that file.
A marine container box inspection facility, costing $15 million, has seen $887,000 spent. It is being built in the city’s North End. The port is an essential service, a major part of the Canadian supply chain.
The port increased the berthage at the South End Container Terminal, opening up an extra 800 metres in 2020. The budget for the multi-year project was $35 million and in 2020 the port spent $20 million on construction costs.
Port VP pleased with 2021 results
Paul MacIsaac, VP of Finance for the Halifax Port Authority, recently told me the port is “pleased with the year,” referring to 2021.
“I would say overall we were pleased with the year – as pleased as we can be given there was no cruise. That represents a significant loss. It was another COVID year,” he said.
“The port, since the beginning of COVID, has been very active in making sure we stayed open. We have had a very committed workforce, the ILA, our container terminals and everyone in the port has worked diligently to keep it open – and our results are in our financial statements,” added MacIsaac.
“What you are seeing in the financial results is the value of a diversified business, and particularly the strong results in our real estate business and cargo lines.
“Expenses were roughly the same as 2020,” MacIsaac told me. In 2021, it cost $19.74 million to run the Port of Halifax, as compared to the prior year’s expenses of $19.71 million.
“During these COVID times we are very careful in terms of our expense management because we can’t take anything for granted, we do not know when the next wave is going to come or when the next negative event comes, so as a result, we have been very diligent under expense management, and that is why expenses have not increased, and that flows to the bottom line, and gives us positive results.”
Bonuses paid out during “extremely challenging year”
Tom Hayes, chair of the Port of Halifax, said bonuses were paid out to senior management for strong performances in 2021.
The bonuses to 33 staffers at the Halifax Port Authority were granted in February 2022 for job performance in 2021.
Hayes says the total amount of bonuses paid out tallied $474,000 in “at-risk compensation.”
He did not name the individuals who received the bonuses, but bonuses were also given its top senior management.
“The consolidated financial statements for the Halifax Port Authority show the organization and all associated partners and stakeholders worked diligently in 2022 to manage expenses and keep cargo moving during the second year of extremely challenging and unpredictable conditions.”
Auditor Grant Thornton reported port salaries in 2021 to the six senior executives and the port’s board of directors. Captain Gray, the port’s CEO, received $450,000 in 2021, up from $391,000 in 2020 – his first full year on the job.
