Doug MacDonald: Thanks for the question.
Justin Long: Understood. That’s helpful. Thanks.
Operator: Our next question comes from Jon Chappell from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Jonathan Chappell: Thank you. Doug, I want to go back to Rupert, you noted back to pre-COVID levels, but you also mentioned a little bit later you’re continuing to work to fill Rupert. So is there any way to quantify what capacity is available in Rupert right now and how much international intermodal can grow if the economy dodges a hard landing and maybe Rupert gets up to the full capacity you envision?
Doug MacDonald: It’s a good question, so you know, Rupert is one of our — it’s the crown jewel we have up there, right? So I would sit there and say, not only are we growing the intermodal, but we’re growing our propane franchise for export out there. We’re growing the coal still going out there. So there is — and the wood pellets as well. So not just that, but is really hitting on the intermodal. I’ll say the international probably dipped down to the lowest at just over 0.5 million TEUs that we’re running through the terminal. It’s got a capacity just over 1. So 1, 1.2, really, that we can go up too easily. And then you start to stretch the terminal a little bit, but that’s great. That’s where we’d love to get to with our partner, DP World.
So we’re working with our customers on how we fill that out. So we’re being very structured about it. And with the changes that are going on, obviously, with the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, we’re seeing some — a lot of interest come to try and fill that up. So we just want to be very diligent, we want to match it to our operation with both Pat and Derek, and we want to oversell it. We’ve got to make sure if we’re going to contract it out with their customers that we’re going to be able to move it as efficiently as we have been and keep that terminal dwell down under three days, which is really what our goal is.
Jonathan Chappell: Thank you, Doug.
Operator: Our last question will come from Michael Kypreos from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Michael Kypreos: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. Your fourth quarter grain volumes were down 13%, and you had mentioned earlier that maybe some of the grain farmers decide to hold back on some volume through the end of the year. Do you have an idea what percentage of this grain you expect to be carried over and recouped in the first half? And maybe an update on the discussion with the farmers and the current grain dynamics, I believe. Thank you.
Doug MacDonald: Sure. I’ll talk specifically about Canadian grain first, and then the US grain is a little bit. Well, I’ll just go Canadian grain first, how’s that? So listen, the prices farmers have had great pricing in the last couple of years. So they’re used to getting a very good price on the market. So this year, the world market actually, there is a lot of surplus from other countries out there. They’ve had good crops. It’s driven the price down. So the Canadian farmer is sitting there saying, I’m going to hold on to grain until I get a better price. So we’ve had probably one of the lowest Q4 demands I’ve seen in my history at the company, but they still have to sell, right? So they’re sitting on a farm that inventory is there anything that we didn’t move in Q4 will shift into Q1 and Q2.
So that’s great. Now I think you can just really take what we did last year, say what didn’t move, and it just moves further out. So I won’t give specific numbers. At the same time, I do believe we’ve had a fairly good crop. The StatCan brought it up to 67 million metric tons in their forecast, finally. And that is actually a good size crop, not as good as last year, but a really great crop. And I think a lot of it was really good on our network. So I think we have a lot of grain to move. We’re going to be very busy for the rest of Q1 with Pat and Derek, and I think we’re going to have a really good tail into Q2. Thanks for your question.
Michael Kypreos: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Tracy Robinson.
Tracy Robinson: Thanks, Julianne. So a strong finish to 2023, by capping off seven quarters now of operational and service excellence and a great setup as we start into 2024. So our plan is working. Our Make The Plan, Run The Plan, Sell The Plan approach is driving the right results. And this railroad right now is running as well as ever, and I like the team that we have. Our growth initiatives are ramping up. I’m really excited about the momentum and the opportunities we have over the next quarters. I want to thank you all for being here with us today and we look forward to talking again very soon. Thank you.
Operator: The conference call has now ended. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.
