Halifax port (port code: CAHAL) is a large deep-water seaport in Canada. It is situated on the east coast of Nova Scotia, approached directly from the Atlantic and within 130 kilometers of the great circle route from Northern Europe to New York.
The harbour is naturally well sheltered with the large inner Bedford Basin. It is free of ice in the winter season with common user and private berths and transit sheds. Most of its berths are intermodel with direct access to an on-dock rail service. Special railway equipment is available for bulk, breakbulk, heavy-lift and containerised cargo.
Used as a regular port of call for container and cruise vessels and also as the site of an oil refinery, shipyards with drydocks, graving docks and marine slips and many marine-based businesses, this port has two modern container terminals, namely South End Terminal at the harbour entrance and Fairview Cove Terminal in Bedford Basin. Both are equipped with gantry cranes and stern loading Ro-Ro ramps.
This port handles approximately 12,239,000t of cargo including over 490,000TEU annually. The main exports from this port are grain, gypsum, lumber, containers, fish and general cargo. And the principal imports to this port include rubber, automobiles, containers, crude oil, etc.
Each year about 900 vessels and 176,000 passengers visit this port. The types of vessels regularly calling at this port are cargo vessels, accounting for about 46%; and tankers, taking up around 7%. The maximum length of the vessels recorded to having entered this port is 396 meters. The maximum draught is 15.2 meters. The maximum deadweight is 187,625t.