Barring a last-minute development, Agricore United and the federal competition bureau will square off in Ottawa March 27 over the future of west coast grain handling.
The two sides will argue before the competition tribunal, a quasi-judicial federal agency, whether AU should still be required to sell one of its Vancouver terminals to preserve competition at the port.
The tribunal has set aside three weeks to deal with the dispute, which has generated hundreds of pages of legal briefs and documents.
At stake is the future of AU’s 102,070 tonne terminal, which the company agreed to sell in a 2002 agreement with the competition bureau.
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AU said it has been unable to find a buyer and has asked the tribunal to overturn the original agreement on the grounds that competitive conditions at the port have changed significantly since 2002.
The competition bureau disagrees and insists the terminal must be sold.
Meanwhile, two Saskatchewan-based organizations say they are still interested in the facility.
Terminal One Vancouver, a consortium of Saskatchewan-based inland terminals that failed in an earlier attempt to buy the terminal, said it hadn’t given up hope of striking a deal before the tribunal hearings start.
“We are working on the possibility that we could still conclude a deal before March 27,” spokesperson Garth Gish said March 15. “Some things have to fall in place.”
He said the consortium and AU have never stopped talking, even after the initial bid fell apart when Terminal One was unable to secure enough committed grain to reach a break-even point of 1.6 million tonnes per year.
“It’s never been a question of money,” said Gish. “You need the tonnes to make it viable and we’re looking at some new innovative ideas to bring in that tonnage.”
One of those ideas could involve a proposal put forward by Farmers of North America, a Saskatoon-based company best known for arranging bulk purchases of farm inputs to garner savings for its roughly 6,000 members.
This winter it surveyed prairie grain farmers as to whether they would be willing to commit grain to support a purchase of the terminal.
As of last week, the company had received non-binding commitments covering more than 750,000 tonnes, said Ash Skinner, FNA’s corporate development officer.
FNA will offer to assist those farmers in obtaining and shipping producer cars, including free administration services for members, starting next month, to assess how serious farmers are.
“If we think we can move on a consistent basis 200,000 to 250,000 tonnes, we’d consider that a success,” said Skinner. “We believe quite strongly we can achieve that.”
Even though producer car shippers avoid paying country handling fees, Skinner said Terminal One would benefit from the program if it would result in more grain going to the terminal.
