Oceanex Celebrating 100 Years

Oceanex, through its predecessor companies, has a long history dating back to 1909 when a service to Corner Brook was started, followed by calls at St. John’s in 1949. Later, through the merger of two other companies, a major integrated transportation provider in Atlantic Canada was created. In 2007, the company changed ownership and Captain Sid Hynes took over the helm as Executive Chairman.

What we do…

Oceanex Inc. is an integrated freight transportation company, providing service to the island of Newfoundland. In fact, Oceanex was deemed an essential service to Newfoundland by the Canada Industrial Relations Board in September 2010. It owns and operates two Roll-On/Roll-Off (“RoRo”) and one container ice-class vessels with four weekly departures from Montreal and Halifax to Newfoundland where it operates the province’s only two intermodal marine terminals in St. John’s and Corner Brook. It owns more than 2,500 containers, as well as trailers, mobile harbour cranes and container handling equipment. Furthermore, Oceanex has the flexibility to expand its equipment fleet as needed to meet increased customer demand.

Oceanex offers a complete range of services to customers including:

• full-load containers and trailers
• less-than-truckload (“LTL”) freight
• refrigerated “reefer” cargo
• any size machinery and project cargo

Oceanex provides pier-to-pier and door-to-door transportation services from any origin in North America, including Mexico. Cargo can be picked up around the continent and consolidated at either Montreal or Halifax for shipment to the province. Oceanex serves over land all points in Newfoundland from St. John’s 24/7 – 365 days of the year.

Oceanex is totally committed to health and safety in the workplace. The company is proud of its excellent safety record and continually emphasizes safe-working practices. Furthermore, Oceanex is committed to the protection of the environment by ensuring all of its activities are consistent with recommended industry practices and applicable laws and regulations. Management at Oceanex attributes its success to their most valuable asset—Oceanex employees. Knowledgeable and experienced, day in and day out, they play an essential role in delivering the Oceanex promise to its customers.

The Next 100 Years…

The employees at Oceanex look forward with enthusiasm to the years ahead as the company continues to invest in its growth and development. Recent years have seen the company’s head office open in St. John’s, the addition of more than 250 53’ containers to its equipment fleet, and new cranes in both St. John’s and Corner Brook. Oceanex has just completed a significant R&D project, which has resulted in the construction of a new, innovative flat rack. Flat racks are primarily used to transport construction materials, project cargo and other specialized or over-dimensional freight, such as that used in the oil and mining industries. This development significantly increases the Oceanex vessels’ loading factor and capacity for additional cargo, as these flat racks are stackable and spatially efficient.

Oceanex is also expanding its service offerings to better meet the needs of customers shipping perishable goods, through the acquisition of a number of 53’ temperature-controlled units, as well as the conversion of 53’ pallet-wide containers to heated units. Finally and most exciting for Oceanex is the completion of specifications for a modern, fuel efficient, custom-designed vessel for its future vessel replacement program. This vessel will be the largest RoRo vessel in the country, with an environmental footprint complying with proposed new air-emissions legislation. This state of the art vessel will have the ability to carry 11,000 tonnes of containers on the weather deck as well as 97 trailers and 570 autos and essentially will double Oceanex’s capacity.

As a leading provider of intermodal transportation solutions to Newfoundland from anywhere in North America, Oceanex continues to set the pace in service efficiency, safety and reliability.

From all accounts, it’s full speed ahead at Oceanex!