DUBAI's DP World saw container volumes across its global portfolio of 78 terminals grow by 10.1 per cent year on year to 70.1 million TEU.

The company operates Vancouver's Centerm and Prince Rupert's Fairview Container Terminal. As of November 2017, container traffic through the Port of Vancouver rose by 10.8 per cent to 2.98 million TEU year on year, while container traffic through Prince Rupert was up 26 per cent to 926,540 TEU.

Last August DP World unveiled a US$200 million expansion to raise the Fairview container terminal's annual capacity to 1.35 million TEU up from 776,412. In the first six months of 2017 it invested US$595 million in assorted growth markets, reported Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide. 

DP World has ambitions to increase its cargo handling capacity on Canada's west coast to four million TEU by 2022. Sixty per cent of that total would flow through Prince Rupert as part of a third Fairview expansion that would raise its capacity to between two million and 2.5 million TEU.

It also plans to invest $350 million in expanding its Centerm container terminal in Burrard Inlet to raise its annual box handling capacity to 1.5 million TEU up from the current 900,000.

Container volume increased in all regions serviced by DP World, especially Australia and the Americas, where gross TEU volume was up 13.8 per cent in 2017 compared with 2016.

DP World CEO Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem pointed to improvements in global trade and market share gains as key factors in the company's increased cargo numbers, which he noted were ahead of 2017's global container cargo market growth of six per cent.

McKinsey estimated that the container shipping sector, without which worldwide GDP would be reduced by US$15 trillion, has "destroyed over US$100 billion in shareholder value over the past 20 years".

Its report predicted that the large gap between container capacity and demand will persist into the early 2020s. Danish Ship Finance (DSF) also sees darker clouds on the horizon for shipping lines, warning that surplus capacity remains a significant issue.