By Avery Mullen
Reflecting on his time leading the Port of Halifax, CEO Captain Allan Gray describes his tenure as one of modernizing both the organization’s internal processes and the way it engages with the rest of the city.
Gray, who previously spent more than 11 years as the harbourmaster in Fremantle, Australia, will step down at the end of this year, concluding a term that has seen him help grow the port even amidst global upheaval. The volume of cargo passing through the port in shipping containers has stayed roughly flat, peaking in 2022, but the size of the ships has increased dramatically, as has the sophistication of the technology in use.
“I think on arrival at the port, one of the things that was evident was that, because the port had started to grow quite quickly, some of the changes in processes and the maturity in processes hadn’t quite kept up with where the port had evolved,” Gray tells The Macdonald Notebook in an interview.
Captain Allan Gray, CEO of the Port of Halifax, will be stepping down later this year.
“During my time, I implemented an internal audit department to set about reviewing processes and procedures that we were doing and looking for best practices….That went beyond just our procurement practices, into our governance practices, what we’re doing with IT in the sense of our enterprise architecture and our cybersecurity, across to our marine operations.”
One instance of that work has been instituting a tender process for legal contracts. More broadly, another example is the port’s efforts to bring its activities more in line with the values of many Nova Scotians, such as by reducing the carbon intensity of its operations and increasing the diversity of its suppliers
“I don’t necessarily like the term, but there’s an (economics concept) called social license, which says that to operate, you need the commitment and support of your community,” Gray says, referencing an idea that originated to describe the ways in which public perception influenced the development of oil and gas projects.
“You could put it as simply as that, but I look at it more on the basis that the city and the port are symbiotic together. We each need each other.”
In 2021, for example, Gray’s team opened the Pier, an innovation hub and living lab for logistics and ocean companies. Its Halifax Seaport real estate division similarly provides commercial space to a variety of local businesses.
Canadian Tire containers at the PSA Halifax terminal. The chain has long shipped goods through the Port of Halifax. The Notebook photo
The port has also thrown its weight behind a pilot program organized by the Canadian Aboriginal Minority Suppliers Council that aims to identify potential First Nations suppliers for the port, as well as improve outreach to Indigenous businesses.
“The challenge in the supply diversity space, particularly across Atlantic Canada, is there’s not a lot of capacity there to bid,” says Gray. “We don’t have a lot of industries of strength, so it’s trying to identify those (businesses) that can get there, and then trying to partner them with larger companies, acting as a subcontractor so that they can build some capacity.”
Gray has also overseen the creation of an operations centre that monitors the port 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and acts as a main point of contact with customers. The port also recently added a joint operations centre to collaborate with PSA Halifax, the terminal operator, and CN Rail on coordination and planning.
Container boxes (TEUs) pictured at the Southend Container Terminal. The Notebook photo
The volume of containerized cargo passing through the Port of Halifax has stayed roughly flat during Gray’s time as CEO. It peaked in 2022 at 601,700 TEUs — twenty-foot equivalent units, referring to the standard length for shipping containers — before falling back to below 2019 levels at 546,163 TEUs.
The typical size of the ships calling in Halifax, though, has increased dramatically. In 2019, the port hosted 1,400 commercial cargo ships carrying 4.46 million metric tonnes of cargo, according to its stakeholder report for the year. Last year, the port saw fewer vessels, at just 829, but actually handled more cargo 4.61 million metric tonnes.
The difference is that, in 2020, PSA Halifax installed two cranes capable of loading and unloading the larger Ultra-class vessels — those capable of carrying 16,000 to 20,000 TEUs. In 2022, 39 ultra-class ships came to Halifax. In 2023, that figure nearly tripled to 107 ultra-class ships. To date, the largest ships calling Halifax have topped off at 16,000 TEUs.
PSA Halifax took command of two more Super-Post Panamax cranes, each costing $12M, in 2023. A similar mega gantry crane was installed in June, 2020 at the Southend Container Terminal. PSA photo
With its cruise ship business largely recovered after the Covid-19 pandemic brought it to a total halt, the port also saw 178 cruise ships and more than 300,000 cruise passengers, up from 148 the year before.
Gray said he does not know what his next job will be, though he and his family have decided to return to Australia.
“Like any time when you leave something, it’s bittersweet,” he says. “There’s a number of companies around that have approached me about potential opportunities, and I’ll evaluate them when I get back to Australia. But at the moment, I’ve made a promise to the board and the staff here that I will stay focused on the rest of the year and the transition with the new CEO.”
