File photo of an oil pumpjack near Drumheller, Alta. (LaughingMango/E+/Getty Images)

Bankrupt oil firms must clean up inactive wells, Supreme Court rules

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa/Winnipeg | Reuters — Canada’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that bankrupt oil companies must clean up inactive wells, overturning lower court decisions that prioritized paying creditors and potentially raising the risks of investment in the industry. The 5-2 ruling means that the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), which had appealed the earlier court decisions, can […] Read more

(File photo by Dave Bedard)

CP books higher Q4 grain revenue on reduced handle

Reading Time: 2 minutes Increased revenue from grain handling — albeit on a slightly lower overall grain handle — helped Canadian Pacific Railway improve its fourth-quarter and year-end gross for 2018. Calgary-based CP on Jan. 23 reported overall net income of $545 million on $2.006 billion in revenues for its fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, down from $984 million […] Read more


Model diesel engines under heavy load no longer belch out black soot than those of a couple of decades ago, thanks to today’s sophisticated engine emissions systems.

Chipping away

Tinkering with the environmental control systems on your new tractor or combine could cost a whole lot more than the $3,000 chipset

Reading Time: 6 minutes A few months ago I was talking with Jim Wood, chief sales and operations officer, at the Rocky Mountain Equipment dealership chain. He voiced concern at the time about equipment owners who were deleting the emissions systems in their late-model equipment. Aside from the issues this creates at dealership service departments, he expressed concern that […] Read more

(File photo by Dave Bedard)

Railways ration space as commodity congestion problems worsen

Reading Time: 3 minutes Winnipeg | Reuters — Canada’s two major railways are rationing space on trains traveling to the country’s biggest port and recently prioritized some commodities over others to deal with congestion, the latest indication of their struggle to meet demand from new trade deals. That move prompted Canada’s transport regulator last week to start an investigation […] Read more


A variable chamber design increases pressure on the bale as it grows in size to maintain an even density.

New balers from AGCO

These Lely-influenced balers join the MF family in North America

Reading Time: 3 minutes After announcing in March 2017 that it had acquired the hay and forage division of European equipment manufacturer Lely, AGCO strode its way into the Agritechnica farm machinery show in Germany that November and proudly introduced a new Massey Ferguson baler based in large part on the engineering it inherited in the Lely purchase. There […] Read more

A freight train at Manchac, La., about 75 km east of Baton Rouge. (CN.ca)

Oil on rail likely won’t interfere with grain movements

Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada — When considering the pattern of how grain is shipped by rail in Canada, it’s very unlikely increased oil shipments would interfere, according to Quorum Corp. “That’s largely because the flow of grain is predominantly to the West Coast and Thunder Bay,” said Quorum president Mark Hemmes. About 80 per cent of Canadian […] Read more


(File photo by Dave Bedard)

CP, CN overshoot annual grain revenue caps

Reading Time: 2 minutes Both of Canada’s big two railways were found to have made more revenue from hauling Prairie grain in 2017-18 than their federally mandated limits allow. The Canadian Transportation Agency on Monday announced Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway overtopped their maximum revenue entitlements (MREs) for the crop year by $1,500,513 and $1,047,285 respectively. CN’s […] Read more

Lozova plans to first introduce itself to Canadian farmers with its Ducat disc harrow.

Building their Canadian base

While the rest of us had our eyes turned south, Ukrainian manufacturer Losova used CUFTA to set up shop in Canada

Reading Time: 5 minutes If we’ve heard about NAFTA and USMCA once during the past 12 months, we’ve heard about them a million times, and for good reason. As the U.S. president’s rhetoric around the renegotiations heated up, the risk to established supply chains in virtually every manufacturing sector kept business executives up at night. Now, with a new […] Read more


A photo simulation of the proposed new Fraser Grain Terminal from Port Royal Park in New Westminster looking southeast. (FraserGrainTerminal.ca)

GrainsConnect hops aboard P+H port terminal project

Reading Time: 2 minutes Updated Jan. 4, 2019 — Winnipeg grain firm Parrish and Heimbecker’s plans for a new West Coast port terminal again have a joint venture partner. Calgary-based GrainsConnect Canada, itself a joint Prairie grain handling venture between Australia’s GrainCorp and Japan’s Zen-Noh Grain, announced Wednesday it now has a formal 50-50 partnership agreement with P+H to […] Read more

(Screengrab from Allflex video via YouTube)

Merck bolsters animal health unit with Allflex deal

Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — Merck and Co. said on Friday it will buy privately-held French company Antelliq Group, which makes digital identification products for livestock, for about 2.1 billion euros (C$3.19 billion) to bolster its fast-growing animal health business. The move affirms the drugmaker’s commitment to the business, which Wall Street analysts have long seen value in […] Read more