In a few weeks, grain will start moving through a brand new Saskatchewan Wheat Pool grain elevator.
That’s not really all that unusual these days, but then again, this isn’t the usual pool elevator.
Rather than shipping Canadian farmers’ grain off to faraway places, this 60,000-tonne terminal will be receiving grain imports.
And there’s one other noteworthy difference.
It’s located about 3,600 kilometres due south of the pool’s Regina head office, at the port of Manzanillo on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
“We hope to unload our first boat in the middle of May,” said Jeff Robertson, the pool’s vice-president of terminal elevators. Opening ceremonies are slated for June 1.
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Construction began on the $38 million project about 14 months ago. The opening is three to four weeks behind the original schedule.
The pool is a 50 percent partner in Comercializadora la Junta, a joint venture company established with Mexican entrepreneur Julio Cesar Gomez, who heads a large family-owned grain processing firm.
The terminal is expected to handle about two million tonnes of grain annually by its second full year of operation, with future expansion to handle three million tonnes.
Market growing
Pool officials say the facility, which is designed to handle a wide variety of crops, including wheat, canola, corn, soybeans, sorghum and sunflower, will provide foreign grain shippers with access to a rapidly growing market of about 60 million consumers.
When the project was unveiled in the spring of 1997, the pool linked it to the company’s plans to develop a new grain exporting facility on Roberts Bank at the port of Vancouver in partnership with Cargill Ltd.
While that project has since been shelved, Robertson said that will have no impact on the prospects for success at Manzanillo, adding there is no intention to use the terminal specifically to handle Sask Pool or Canadian grain.
“It’s a public terminal, and the more the merrier,” he said. “We hope to use it to market Canadian grain into that part of the world, but most of Mexico’s grains come from the U.S., and some from South America and Australia.”
He said there has been some encouraging growth in the Mexican grain market since the project was first announced.
“Things seem to be going well in the market, despite some economic problems, which seem to be not as severe as we thought six months ago.”
The first stage of the project includes a ship unloader that will handle 1,000 tonnes per hour, two 25,000 tonne storage domes and hopper car loaders capable of loading 50 cars per shift.
A second phase will see the addition of a second ship unloader and the construction of three more domes for a total storage capacity of 110,000 tonnes. When that work is done in 12 to 18 months, the facility will be able to unload 2,000 tonnes per hour and handle three million tonnes per year.
Project in Poland
Meanwhile another overseas terminal project at Gdansk, Poland, is nicely under way.
Pilings have been completed on the $116 million project and some foundation work has been done, but “there’s not a lot to see there yet,” said Robertson.
The pool has a 53 percent interest in Europort Inc., a joint venture with two other Canadian companies and a United States firm. The pool is responsible for the design and will operate the facility for 15 years.
The terminal, which is expected to be completed in the spring of 2000, will have an annual handling capacity of three million tonnes and be the deepest ice-free grain facility in the Baltic Sea.
