Sept-Iles Loading Facility

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The loading dock facility is designed to handle 254,000-ton carriers with a combined maximum loading rate of 15,000 tons per hour. Because of ice conditions in the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the shipping season is nine to ten months long.

Until the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed, large ore boats could not traverse further upstream then Contrecoeur, Quebec. To circumvent the problem, an ore transfer terminal was started in 1954. The following year the terminal was completed and The Verchamian carried the first shipment of ore to be transshipped into smaller canallers for transport to the lower Great Lake ports. The Tritonica became the first vessel with a shipment of iron ore to sail the St. Lawrence Seaway which was completed in 1959.

On September 10, 1980, the four hundred millionth ton of iron ore produced in both Schefferville and Labrador City is loaded onto the Algobay.

On June 13, 2001 the 500,000,000th tonne of pellets and concentrate produced in just Labrador City was shipped from Sept-Iles on the CSL Sprint going to Baltimore for Bethlehem Steele.