One of Thunder Bay’s most significant economic driving forces is its port, which receives hundreds of cargo ships from all over the world.
The 2025 navigation season has been strong and has kept the port busy.
Emily Price, the port’s director of corporate and commercial affairs, said it’s the most prominent grain export port on the Seaway, with its overall tonnage closely tied to the volume of Prairie grain moving through Thunder Bay.
By the end of October, approximately 6.6 million metric tons (MMT) of grain had already moved through.
“To put that in context, if we finish the season with grain volumes similar to the last few months of 2024, we could close out at around 8.75 MMT,” Price said. “That would make 2025 one of the best years for grain in the last 25 years, second only to 2020, when COVID-driven global demand created an anomaly.”
Price said that potash has also become a major part of their story.
“Before the potash boom of 2021-2022, grain typically made up 85-90 per cent of our total cargo,” she said. “Today it’s closer to 75 per cent — not because grain is down, but because potash exports have surged.”
Price added that this season’s potash volumes have been strong, though not quite at the record-breaking levels of 2024.
“It’s worth noting that 2024 saw 40-year highs due to a unique “perfect storm” of global factors,” she said, adding that the fact that they retained a substantial portion of that business, even after some of those factors normalized, is a positive sign.
Price pointed out that producers benefited from diversifying through Thunder Bay, and they’ve continued to rely on the port.
“That’s a real testament to the reliability of our system and the way this cargo has been handled locally,” she said. “As of the end of October, we are sitting just shy of one metric ton of potash, something that would have been unheard of before 2022.”
She added that compared to post-2021/2022 volumes, they are sitting comfortably in the middle, which may represent a new normal for potash exports at the Port of Thunder Bay.
Based on the commodities that make up most of the port’s cargo, the direct impacts of the U.S.-imposed tariffs have been minimal. However, Price says any major disruption in global trade inevitably creates ripple effects.
“So while we have not experienced significant direct impacts, broader global market shifts will always influence the environment we operate in,” she said.
Grain shipments vary significantly from year to year because they directly reflect crop production in the Prairies, and it takes about half of a season for the grain to reach Thunder Bay. Price said they can make more confident predictions about the first half of the 2026 season than the latter half, which depends on a harvest that hasn’t happened yet.
“Overall, early reports indicate a strong 2025 prairie crop, although conditions have been uneven in some regions,” she said.
Price says their goals for 2026 are similar to those of previous years and as an export-dominant port, one of the core objectives is to attract more inbound cargo. Increasing inbound shipments allows more outbound vessels to be loaded with substantial export volumes, creating more economical two-way shipping and supporting local terminal facilities, she explained.
“More broadly, we continue to promote the strengths of the Port of Thunder Bay: our strategic geographic position as the gateway between Western Canada and world markets, our lack of marine congestion, our ability to offer flexible and customized logistics solutions, and the availability of land for future development and laydown,” she pointed out. “These are competitive advantages that we leverage to bring new business to Thunder Bay, and new business often benefits multiple local facilities, strengthening the entire regional shipping economy.
