Winnipeg’s Paterson Grain has lined up property off the QE2 Highway in central Alberta for its next inland grain terminal.
The company announced Monday it would start construction “immediately” at a site near Bowden, Alta., about 40 km south of Red Deer, to start taking grain in 2017.
The facility, when complete, will have storage capacity of over 55,000 tonnes plus a “highly efficient” loop track system, with capacity to load a 150-car unit train in seven hours, the company said.
The new facility will be built with a dual receiving area for trucks and “extremely convenient” access off Highway 2, allowing for “quick turnaround times for off-farm deliveries.”
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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.
“As the first in the industry to utilize the loop track design in Canada, Paterson has been able to minimize train loading times, setting a new industry benchmark at its loop track sites,” the company said.
Grain from the Bowden site — the company’s fourth terminal in the province — will be destined for export via Paterson’s Alliance Grain Terminal in Vancouver.
Bowden, which is served by Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), has one other elevator, a 1,200-tonne capacity site operated by grain handler and pulse processor W.A. Grain. — AGCanada.com Network
