oil exports push port of vancouver to record cargo shipments in the first half of 2025
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the port of vancouver has launched a public engagement process for its proposal to dredge the shipping channel through the second narrows of burrard inlet.
arlen redekop
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record cargo volumes moving through the port of vancouver in the first half of 2025 are a sign that canada’s global trade is holding up as the economy teeters on the brink of recession and companies look to reduce their dependence on u.s. trade.
the results, however, are more a sign of the resource sector’s success than any big shifts in canada’s trading patterns away from american customers, said port executive peter xotta.
greater diversification will be a longer-term project, he said.
“i don’t think what we’re expecting, at least from my perspective, is a wholesale change in the type of products that come through this gateway,” said xotta, ceo of the port of vancouver’s governing vancouver fraser port authority.
xotta does expect increasing volumes of exports through the port’s terminals, and hopefully growth in the volume of shipments to some of canada’s smaller markets.
“that will take some time, obviously, but the narrative around the desire to pivot and the support that we’re seeing from a policy (perspective) and just general discussions around infrastructure improvements, is very positive,” he added.
port terminals handled 85 million tonnes of cargo over the first six months of 2025, thanks in large part to an increase in crude oil exports from trans mountain’s westridge marine terminal in burnaby. shipments of crude oil, mostly diluted bitumen from alberta’s oilsands, hit 11.6 million tonnes during that period, up 365 per cent from the same period in 2024.
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according to statistics released by the vancouver fraser port authority, crude oil is now its second-largest single-commodity export, behind only coal.
xotta said port terminals also had big increases in exports of other key commodities such as potash, fertilizer and wheat, but “energy products, the crude products, are what’s driving a significant portion of the total tonnage.”
the news of record cargo shipments comes as the port of vancouver earlier this month launched the public comment phase of its next infrastructure project, dredging the shipping channel through the second narrows of burrard inlet, which will potentially increase those oil shipments.
the port says the project would mean dredging between 1.3 metres to six metres of material over a total area of less than two hectares along the edges of the shipping channel.
deepening the channel won’t result in larger tankers using it, the port says. the westridge terminal is designed for a class of tankers called aframax, which are up to 255 metres long and can carry up to 755,000 barrels of oil.
“from a technical perspective, it’s a very modest project,” xotta said. “but the fundamental underlying thing is that vessels go out somewhere between 75 to 80 per cent loaded because of those depths and water restrictions.”
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“if we can take the same volume and get ships going out 100 per cent full, that results in possibly 15 or 20 per cent fewer vessels,” xotta said. and it results in a 20 to 25 per cent increase in exports with the same number of tankers.
xotta said they are at the start of public engagement and environmental assessment of the dredging proposal, which will include engagement with first nations.
immediately, however, oil exports have helped canadian oil producers realize higher prices for diluted bitumen, classified as western canadian select, said werner antweiler, a trade economist with the university of b.c.’s sauder school of business.
“it has contributed to, you know, the producers having that diversification now,” antweiler said.
port statistics show that 60 per cent of oil exports from the port were shipped to china in the first half of 2025, compared with 46 per cent in all of 2024. exports to the u.s. were 35 per cent, compared with 51 per cent 2024.
exports to south korea and japan also showed marginal increases in the first half of 2025.
“we’re doing pretty well with natural resources,” antweiler said. “that’s really driving most of the change.”
besides oil, antweiler took note of the big increase in potash exports, which were up 26 per cent to five million tonnes. that helped push fertilizer shipments overall up 20 per cent to seven million tonnes.
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exports from b.c.’s beleaguered forest industry were down 16 per cent to 7.5 million tonnes.
antweiler added that imports of consumer goods are “a little bit up,” but overall port traffic “is a very typical picture from year to year.”
in consumer goods, the port of vancouver had modest, six per cent growth in container traffic with terminals handling 1.9 million twenty-foot-equivalent units (teus) , the standard measure for the category.
just over half of that container volume, 963,000 teus, were import products, which was a 3.5 per cent increase.
of containers being exported, 507,000 of the teus were empty boxes being shipped back to asia, which xotta said is more than the port would like.
“in a world where we’re diversifying, containers are a big part of diversification efforts,” xotta said.
in agricultural products particularly, xotta said containers give shippers the flexibility to ship smaller volumes of grains or lentils into new markets.
xotta said trade volumes over the months following the june report “have been a continuation of the theme,” with no “strong evidence of anything really fundamentally shifting.”
“the next three to six months will really be telling in terms of what the domestic economy will look like,” xotta said.
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however, the plans of some of its major shippers look “pretty darn robust, so knock on wood.”
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