Westshore Terminals Investment Corporation said that a gearbox that controls a shiploader boom’s movements at the terminal’s Berth 1 have been damaged in an accident.

“This prevents Westshore from being able to use Berth 1 to ship coal, but does not impact any other aspect of the terminal operations,” officials said.

Westshore said that it expects replacement of the damaged gearbox and other related repairs to take at least two weeks.

“This downtime will result in reduced coal handling capacity at Westshore during this period to throughput levels that can be handled through Berth 2,” the company noted.

In the meantime, Westshore has advised its customers of the issue, and said it will work to minimize disruptions to their shipments.

The coal terminal of the Westshore Terminals, which was opened in 1970, is located at Roberts Bank, Delta, just south of downtown Vancouver. It is part of Port Metro Vancouver.

The facility is the single busiest export coal terminal in North America, shipping about 21 million tonnes of coal annually.