Cargill’s Canadian arm plans to build a new grain terminal in northwestern Alberta’s Peace region to go with a new ag input centre it operates on the same site.
Winnipeg-based Cargill said it plans to build a 28,000-tonne capacity facility at McLennan, about 75 km southeast of Peace River, to open in the fall of 2012.
The terminal is to be built along Canadian National Railway (CN) track on the same site as Cargill’s McLennan crop inputs distribution centre, which opened last month.
The facility is expected to be able to load rail cars at a rate of 50,000 bushels per hour, allowing for loading of 104 rail cars in less than 12 hours, which the company said would make the elevator one of the most efficient terminals in northern Alberta.
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As the harvest in southern Alberta presses on, a broker said that is one of the factors pulling feed prices lower in the region. Darcy Haley, vice-president of Ag Value Brokers in Lethbridge, added that lower cattle numbers in feedlots, plentiful amounts of grass for cattle to graze and a lacklustre export market also weighed on feed prices.
The terminal will double Cargill’s grain-handling capacity in the area, the company said.
“By providing physical elevator space we have been able to address a key farm business need,” Mike Witkowicz, Cargill AgHorizons’ farm service group manager in the region, said in the company’s release Monday. “Also, critical to our customer’s success is the ability to market their grain.”
Cargill last year shut one of its elevators at Albright in the southwest of the Peace region and redirected that facility’s customers to its elevator at Rycroft, about 120 km west of McLennan.
The company is also building a 13,000-tonne capacity fertilizer shed at the McLennan site to be ready for use this fall.
The McLennan crop inputs distribution centre already includes a 5,000-square-foot chemical and seed shed, a 240-tonne fertilizer blending tower and two 50-tonne bins for straight product loading.
The fertilizer distribution and blending system is expected to allow Cargill to load out about eight Super B loads per hour, allowing farmers to transport grain and load fertilizer in one trip.
