James Richardson International (JRI) has expansions planned for two of its Pioneer Grain facilities in eastern Saskatchewan.
The company announced Wednesday that it will build a new 4,000-tonne capacity fertilizer storage building and blending facility at its Pioneer Grain elevator at Yorkton, Sask. The site is expected to be open this spring.
Pioneer Grain will also double its grain storage capacity to 10,000 tonnes at its elevator at Canora, Sask., about 50 km north of Yorkton.
The company will also double the Canora elevator’s rail capacity to handle 104 cars, up from its current 52-car spot. Construction work on those two projects is expected to be complete by the end of this summer, the company said in a release.
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Winnipeg-based JRI “has traditionally had a very strong presence in Saskatchewan and it is important for us to ensure that our facilities in that province continue to be world-class,” JRI president Curt Vossen said in the release.
Yorkton is also JRI’s site of choice for a major new canola crushing facility, which it announced in September 2006, though that facility is reportedly still at the design stage. Another grain handling firm, Louis Dreyfus Canada, has plans for a similar-size canola crusher for Yorkton.
JRI last year expanded its grain handling capacity by over 50 per cent by buying several elevators and ag input retail operations owned by the former Agricore United in all three Prairie provinces, including three AU elevators and six crop input retail outlets in Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and JRI reached a $315 million deal for the AU facilities in May 2007 before SaskPool’s merger with AU as Viterra, partly to satisfy federal competition regulators.
Vossen said in JRI’s release that bringing the AU sites into the Pioneer network has been a “tremendous success” and has “certainly encouraged (JRI) to continue investing in our assets and grow our business strategically.”
JRI last week announced grain handling capacity expansions at two Pioneer sites and rail capacity expansion at a third, all in Alberta.
