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The Port of Vancouver wants to expand its capacity to handle containerized cargo to meet growth in global trade, but it’s at odds with one of its terminal operators over how to accomplish the expansion at Roberts Bank in Tsawwassen.

The port, for most of the last decade, has been advancing its $2-billion Roberts Bank Terminal 2 proposal, which would involve filling 108 hectares of new land into the ocean to build a three-berth expansion to the west of its existing Deltaport (DP) terminal.

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Deltaport’s operator, Global Container Terminals Canada (GCT), however, has a $1-billion proposal to build a fourth berth to dock ships at the existing terminal, but the port, as GCT’s landlord and first-level regulator, has refused to consider a preliminary application as a first step.

In a letter, Port of Vancouver vice-president Peter Xotta said GCT’s Berth 4 proposal is in an area where the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has prohibited additional land reclamation and that Terminal 2 “is our preferred project for expansion of capacity.”