The Prince George Airport Authority took another step towards carving out a spot in the air cargo business Wednesday.
The airport took delivery of two fuel tanks, which were installed at the Boeing Road "fuel farm" -- a depot designed to handle up to six jumbo jets stopping in Prince George to refuel.
The tanks are capable of holding 150,000 litres of jet fuel each and are the last piece of the puzzle for the cargo tech-stop project.
Two more tanks are expected to arrive from Tisdale, Sask., and be installed on Monday.
"We've got the runway, we've got the apron and now we've got fuel storage to be able to handle large aircraft," said director of operations Cuyler Green
Once the final two tanks are in place next week, the piping and plumbing will be installed and the entire facility should be up and running by July, according to Green.
"What this means for our airline customers is a greater choice in fuel supply. Airlines can put their own fuel in there and we can store fuel from different fuel vendors in a common source fuel facility, which is what this will be. So if someone's doing a bulk fuel buy they can get the price based on what their global volumes are, not just what their local volumes are," Green said.
The 22.7-tonne tanks were manufactured by Westeel and measure just over 14 metres long, 4.75 metres tall and 3.8 metres wide. They will be capable of pumping 4,000 litres per minute.
"There is no system [like this] north of Vancouver," said Cal Johnson, a sales representative from tank supplier Williams Petroleum, which will also oversee the installation of the piping and associated products. "These are the biggest tanks ever to be moved into the province."
The fueling facility is part of a larger program to make the Prince George Airport attractive to cargo traffic, which began with the extension of the runway - now the third longest in Canada.
"It's always been sort of a long range program. None of these things sort of happen overnight," Green said. "Getting the funding in place for the runway was a three-year project, the building of the runway and the apron was almost two years in itself and putting in place the last bit with the fuel we're working with different partners to get them all in place."
Green said YXS is in discussions with three aircraft carriers about using the facility, jostling for a spot on the circumpolar route between Asia and North America.
"We have a number of air carriers that are interested in utilizing our facility. Like anybody, they're not going to bring their $300 million investments into our facility unless all the pieces are in place," Green said.
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