A new grain terminal being built in Quebec City by La Coop fédérée will begin shipping Canadian wheat, corn and soybean and other cereals to new overseas markets this fall, company officials say.
“This is great news for Canadian grain growers,” says Sébastien Léveillé, executive vice-president of Agri-business, one of three divisions of La Coop fédérée. “This new terminal will increase storage capacity and help open and supply new markets.”
The new $90-million facility will be built in four phases at the western end of the port of Quebec City.
Ready by autumn
Under the first phase, La Coop fédérée and joint venture partner Fonds de solidarité FTQ will convert two existing silos currently being used to store wood pellets into grain storage facilities. Various equipment needed to sort and load grain onto ships will also be installed this summer.
Léveillé says the facility should be ready to begin shipping grain come harvest time.
He says new storage and berthing facilities will be added in the coming years to bring the site’s maximum shipping capacity of mostly grain and some fertilizers to 1.3 million tonnes a year.
Though smaller than the facilities run by the world’s top grain terminal operators, Léveillé says the Quebec City site will be more flexible and responsive to the needs of Canadian growers.
Strategic advantage
He adds that most grain to flow through the terminal will come from producers in Quebec and Ontario.
“Our strategic advantage is the privileged relationship we have with them,” Léveillé says.
The co-operative is the largest agri-food co-operative in Canada with more than 120,000 members grouped into some 70 co-ops across the country. The co-op grew earlier this year when it acquired all of Cargill’s Ontario grain assets and purchased Standard Nutrition Canada, making it a major player overnight in the feed business in Western Canada.
“We’re clearly in a growth period,” Léveillé says. "This new grain terminal is part of it."
Source : Farm Credit Canada