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rian Northeast believes
the new grain-shipping terminal
being built a few miles south of
his Oxbow, SK, farm this past fall, which
will rail Prairie grains and oilseeds into
U.S. and Mexican markets, is going to
be a boon for southern Saskatchewan
farmers.
Northeast said the Ceres Global Ag
Corp. rail terminal located at Northgate,
SK, in the province’s southeast corner,
will give farmers another marketing
option alongside the traditional
Canadian grain elevators that rely on
moving grain over Canadian rail lines.
“Any time producers have another
option, it presents a great opportunity,”
said Northeast, who is also reeve of the
rural municipality of Enniskillen No. 3.
From a municipal government
standpoint, he said the investment of
about $80 million to build the Northgate
rail loading facility also helps the
municipal tax base.
“It appears to be a great project that
will benefit both the agriculture and the
oil and gas industries in the southern
Prairies,” said Northeast. “Ultimately,
time will tell exactly what the impact is,
but there certainly appears to be a lot of
interest.”
The Northgate Commodity Logistics
Hub is a 1,500-acre site just north of the
U.S. border. The Ceres terminal was built
to load trains that will haul commodities
south to U.S. markets and beyond.
The double-loop railway track system
connects at the U.S. border with a
branch line from the Burlington Northern
Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway—America’s
largest rail company.
With the Northgate project serving as
both a grain buyer and exporter, Ceres
has staff on the ground now in southern
Saskatchewan. They are sourcing grains
and oilseeds to be moved through
temporary grain-handling facilities
that opened in October. A temporary
transloading system fills about 72 rail
cars with about 300,000 bushels of
wheat, barley, oats, durum and canola
per week bound for U.S. markets.
Once a permanent 2.2-million-bushel
grain storage and handling facility is
completed in early 2016, that volume
should about triple as the facility plans
to load 220 rail cars—moving about
Winter
2015
Grains
West
42
Northgate transloader to serve U.S., Mexico and beyond
by LEE HART • PHOTOs COURTESY OF CERES GLOBAL AG
Feature
B
Option to
market