Officials with Ceres Global Ag say the amount of grain the company handles annually will likely double in 2016-17, thanks largely to the completion of the company’s new terminal at Northgate, Sask.
Year-end financial data released by the company Sept. 22 listed total grain handlings for the 2015-16 fiscal year at 55.8 million bushels.
Due to changes in financial reporting, Ceres’s 2015-16 fiscal year covered a 15-month period that ended June 30, 2016.
Ceres president Robert Day suggested that the company’s total grain handlings would double in the 12-month period ending June 30, 2017, pushing annual volumes to more than 110 million bu.
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“The high demand for our grain handling and storage services during this year’s harvest season was very encouraging for a number of reasons,” Day said.
“It suggests that we are establishing a strong reputation among farmers for the quality of our infrastructure, allowing farmers to penetrate markets across North America and through to U.S. export gateways more efficiently.”
Ceres reported quarterly revenues of $149.3 million in the three months ending June 30, 2016, and a net loss of $1.9 million, or seven cents per share.
That compares with quarterly revenues of $59.3 million and a net loss of $1.7 million, or six cents per share during the same three-month period in 2015.
The company reported a loss of $11.7 million in 2015-16 related to a devaluation of durum inventories.
Despite that, the 2015-16 year saw significant progress in a number of other areas, said Day, including the completion of the company’s grain handling facility at Northgate and an increase in the number of farmer customers served and bushels handled, expanded handlings of non-core grains and oilseeds including canola, rye, peas and flax and growth in the number of rail cars loaded at Northgate.
Northgate’s total rail car loadings in 2015-16 — including grain and propane — were listed at 3,200, up from 416 the previous year.
The company also hired approximately 20 new employees to operate the Northgate terminal and it recently reached an agreement with Koch Fertilizer Canada, which will facilitate incoming shipments of fertilizer and allow farmers delivering grain to Northgate to back-haul fertilizer.
“Most notably, our performance in (2015-16) was marked by the build-out of Northgate, the increase in the number of customers served and bushels handled, the growth in number of rail cars loaded with grains, oilseed or propane, and the addition of Koch Fertilizer Canada as one of our strategic partners,” Day said.
“We ended the year with a more diverse mix of products handled, a larger inventory of tradeable grains and a reduced exposure to risk than when we began (in 2015-16). This progress positioned us to capitalize on the high demand for handling and storage services during the recent harvest season given the record output of grains, canola, and pulses. This record supply should also help to sustain increased trading activities across our network throughout (2017).”
Day said Ceres continues to explore other opportunities that would allow the company to expand its handlings into new products.
He declined to offer specifics on the nature of those opportunities.
brian.cross@producer.com
