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Dry cargo strategy is on the way

Expect NTCL delivery model soon

Darrell Greer
Northern News Services


Rankin Inlet (Jan 29/03) - The suspense is almost over.

Kivalliq residents will find out what the Northern Transportation Company Ltd.'s (NTCL) plans are for any involvement in the shipping of dry cargo to the region in about two weeks.

NTCL president Clifford Abraham says NTCL is looking closely at continuing to ship cargo to the region.

"It has not been an easy exercise to see what we can do to try and run an economical and viable service out of Churchill, Man., into the Kivalliq communities in 2003," says Abraham. "But, we're continuing to work away at it."

Abraham says NTCL is still waiting for some price indications to come through on various aspects of the delivery model the company is trying to put in place.

He says those indicators should be in place within the next few days.

"Once we receive the last of the price indicators, we'll take a few days to evaluate our model based on that information.

"I anticipate it being sometime during the second week of February before we're able to make an announcement as to what we anticipate being able to do."

The Government of Nunavut came out with its request for sealift proposals this past week.

The closing date for those proposals is Feb. 11.

Abraham says NTCL is, obviously, looking at the government sealift contract quite carefully.

He says the Nunavut government's decision on the proposal could have some impact on NTCL's plans.

"We also want to see what we can do -- as far as the Kivalliq region is concerned -- independently of the sealift proposal so we can assess the government's contract on a separate basis.

"Our service to the region is not necessarily dependant on what the Nunavut government may do."

Abraham says the other side of the coin to NTCL's cost study of the Kivalliq region is that it's not totally independent of the Nunavut government's sealift contract.

"There's a number of factors to whatever decision NTCL ultimately makes.

"We're sharpening our pencils and trying to do everything we can towards our goal of staying involved with the shipping of dry goods into the Kivalliq region."