Revised, April 3, 2014 — Viterra is hatching plans to return to the Kindersley area of western Saskatchewan with its own new high-throughput grain elevator.
The Regina company, now the Prairie grain handling arm of Swiss commodity firm Glencore Xstrata, announced Thursday its “intent” to build a new 34,000-tonne capacity concrete elevator at Kindersley with a 108-car rail spot.
The company hasn’t yet announced a start date or expected completion date for the new construction, a Viterra representative said Thursday.
While Viterra owns a 39,500-tonne capacity elevator on Canadian National Railway (CN) track at Rosetown, about 80 km east on Highway 7, the company hasn’t had its own site at Kindersley since last May.
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That’s when Viterra, in a side deal as part of its takeover by Glencore, sold its Kindersley elevator and 18 others to Winnipeg’s Richardson Pioneer. The elevator, at 41,700 tonnes capacity, is now Richardson’s second-largest in Saskatchewan. [Related story]
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, during its merger with Agricore United (AU) to form Viterra, sold its 22,500-tonne capacity Kindersley elevator in 2007 to Cargill.
AU had also held elevator space in Kindersley and nearby towns through its 50 per cent ownership of farmer-owned Prairie West Terminal, but sold that stake back to PWT in 2002. CWB, the former Canadian Wheat Board, took a 10 per cent share in PWT in January this year.
Kindersley — served by CN — also hosts a primary elevator owned by Canpulse Foods, along with the Richardson, Cargill and PWT facilities.
“Viterra has a long history of serving farm customers in the Kindersley area, and we are pleased to build on this relationship through a new state-of-the-art facility,” Kyle Jeworski, Viterra’s CEO for North America, said in a release Thursday.
The new site, he added, will support the company’s “ongoing strategy to optimize our footprint.” –– AGCanada.com Network
CORRECTION, April 3: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Viterra had not operated a Kindersley elevator since 2007. We regret the error.
