REGINA – Saskatchewan Wheat Pool has unveiled plans for a new generation of high-volume concrete elevators designed to take advantage of post-Crow market conditions.
An 18,200 tonne facility, the largest elevator the company has yet built, is scheduled to go up at Tisdale in northeastern Saskatchewan. The new elevator, the first in a line of six to 10 such facilities, is expected to be able to receive, ship, clean and dry simultaneously, said Bruce Johnson, the general manager of the company’s grain group. It could cost up to $15 million and should be open for business by late 1996.
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This type of facility has been slated for the Tisdale area for years, Johnson said, but the large changes occurring in grain transportation and processing make it necessary, he said.
“As we try to drive costs out of the system, the ability to load 100 cars in less than 10 hours will allow us to capture whatever incentives there are,” he said. Apart from speed, the elevator will make it much easier to swing product toward the continental market, rather than pushing everything into exports, he said.
“It has to be capable of serving many different marketplaces – that’s the principle,” he said.
High-tech equipment will enable the elevator to send shipments of grain with exact protein and grade levels straight to North American buyers.
With higher shipping costs coming, selling to domestic and American buyers will become much more important, he said.
The elevator will be able to load a 100-car train in less than 10 hours and will handle from 250,000 to 400,000 tonnes per year, he said.
Better service offered
The Tisdale elevator will knock a number of other elevators in the area out of the system, but Johnson said producers will probably get better service from the new facility.
He wouldn’t say how many elevators will be forced to close, but added the pool is looking at using some of the smaller elevators for special crops.
He said new concrete elevators won’t sound the final death knell for existing wooden elevators.
The pool’s system is built around two large terminals in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, the first generation of concrete elevators scattered around rural Sask-atchewan and the wooden elevators that still stand above most towns and villages.
The new generation of facilities will “fill gaps” in the system, Johnson said. But older concrete elevators will be upgraded and given new features, while wooden elevators that are still needed will be kept.
Condominium storage at the Tisdale elevator, which allows farmers to store grain on-site, might also be an option for local producers, Johnson said. It would require local investment and could provide another 14,000 tonnes of storage space.
As well, three workers will deal with producers on-farm and much use will be made of the “Mobiload unit,” which can grade, weigh and buy farmers’ grain right at the farm, he said.
