Across the Pacific Ocean, on the northwest coast of the United States, ships are now loading agricultural products at a new export terminal located at the Port of Grays Harbor in Aberdeen, Washington.

The American Soybean Association is excited about the many benefits this new port facility offers U.S. soybean customers.

Geographically, the Port of Grays Harbor provides the most direct route for transporting bulk commodities from the United States to countries in Asia and Oceania. This route is currently the fastest and most cost-effective means of delivering U.S. agricultural products between Midwest farms and Pacific Rim customers. [See Map 1.]

Ag Processing Inc—a farmer-owned cooperative, owns this state-of-the-art facility, which was designed specifically to meet the needs of customers seeking Identity Preserved, high-value soy protein products. The Port of Grays Harbor runs and maintains the facility, and the local longshoremen operate it.

Although this presentation will highlight the many customer benefits of AGP’s Terminal 2 at Grays Harbor, our story begins with the harvest of soybeans in the central United States. 

Part 1

Here in the Midwest United States are located vast fertile fields that have been dominated by corn, soybean and wheat production for nearly a century.

In the past decade there has been a significant movement of U.S. soybean production areas toward the north and west. During this time, states such as Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota have experienced substantial growth in soybean acres, moving the source of supply ever closer to Pacific Rim customers.

Ag Processing Inc, or AGP, has its soybean processing plants located in this region, and its world headquarters is located near the Nebraska-Iowa border in the city of Omaha.

AGP is owned by 220 local cooperatives and 6 regional cooperatives, representing 250,000 farmers from 16 states throughout the U.S. and Canada. AGP is the largest farmer-owned soybean processing company in the world, processing more than 15,000 metric tons of soybeans every day. Soybean processing is AGP’s core business.

AGP’s cooperative processing network has the ability to grow, handle, process and deliver Identity Preserved "IP" products. In this cooperative structure, the linkage between the producer, the local cooperative, and AGP provides a seamless delivery path that ensures the integrity of IP products are effectively maintained and preserved from origin to customer destinations around the world.

AGP has an experienced team of professional merchandisers involved in grain origination, transportation and grain marketing both domestically and internationally. The expanding scope of AGP’s export effort has earned the company a reputation as a premier supplier of high quality commodities to the world.

With complete control of its own fleet of 3,500 railcars, AGP has the ability to assemble railcars into 50, 75, or 100 unit car trains based on each customer’s individual order. This gives AGP maximum scheduling control of shipping containers, saving AGP customers valuable time and money.

A key factor in AGP’s ability to meet customer specifications for IP products is that it maintains a separate IP railcar fleet that is cleaned, washed, marked and sealed to ensure that the integrity of IP products can be maintained from origin to destination.

With rail service available from two of the largest U.S. railroads—the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, and the Union Pacific—AGP has excellent access to reliable rail service that is competitively priced. This enviable situation allows AGP to pass the savings of lower transportation costs along to their customers.

Strategically situated near the center of the United States’ soybean production area, a customer’s order assembled at AGP’s Midwest processing facilities takes only 5 or 6 days to reach the Port of Grays Harbor. This efficiency saves time and allows AGP to quickly meet the needs of each customer. 

Part 2

At the Port of Grays Harbor, AGP has a staging area with the capacity to hold up to 300 railcars. An additional mile-long loop track that brings the trains directly to AGP’s facility is capable of accommodating another 100 railcars. With the railcars in AGP’s fleet capable of holding either 90 or 100 metric tons each, AGP has the capacity to assemble up to 40,000 metric tons at the port prior to the arrival of the customer’s vessel. This allows for immediate cargo loading when the vessel arrives, further reducing transportation cost and shipping time.

Railcars pass over an axle scale and enter a computerized receiving building that includes a 100-foot long dump pit, which can accommodate the unloading of two railcars simultaneously. 

Shuttle conveyors enclosed in 3-meter diameter steel alloy tubes then raise the product from the receiving building up to a 1,600 metric ton per hour process scale and sample tower. Here each delivery is carefully monitored by an automated system that quickly and accurately weighs and samples at a rate of 10 railcars per hour. A second shuttle conveyor then raises and moves the product out to the loader.

AGP’s Terminal 2 is a new facility that was specially designed from the ground up for handling Identity Preserved "IP" agricultural products, such as soybeans, soybean meal, AminoPlus, corn, corn gluten meal and other specialty products. 

The facility has the capability to unload unit trains consisting of several different commodities, and to separate and maintain the uniqueness of these products by individual batches that are loaded into separate ship holds. This is made possible by a custom grain handling system that can be efficiently cleaned out, washed down and air dried to ensure the integrity of IP products is effectively maintained and preserved from origin to destination.

A thin layer of air supports both the supply and return side of the conveyors. Brushes and forced air are employed to continuously clean the conveyor, and a vacuum system removes dust and pulls it away from the conveyor. To further eliminate potential contamination, the system was designed without cracks or crevasses that could retain traces of product between batches.

At AGP’s Terminal 2, a mobile loader is mounted on rails so it can move parallel to the vessel, allowing the loader to reach all sections of the ship. This eliminates the need to move the ship during the loading process, further reducing the time and expense of repositioning a vessel after initial docking. The loader is rated at 1,500 tons per metric hour, giving the terminal the capability to load 6 to 8 ships per month.

The self-scouring deepwater berth at Terminal 2 is dredged to 12 and a half meters, giving the terminal a design capacity that will accommodate Panamax-sized vessels capable of holding up to 60,000 metric tons. These larger, more cost effective vessels further reduce customer shipping expenses.

On the other hand, AGP anticipates that Handimax-sized ships carrying up to 40,000 metric tons will be the primary vessels calling on the port. The ability to effectively service these medium-sized vessels will provide each customer with flexible loading options.

As mentioned earlier in this presentation, the Port of Grays Harbor provides the most direct route for transporting products from the United States to Pacific Rim countries. [See Map 2.]

While shipments from the U.S. Gulf to Pacific Rim countries take about 40 to 42 days, shipments from the Port of Grays Harbor take only about 20 days, effectively cutting transportation time in half for most customers. And due to its close proximity to the open ocean, the Port of Grays Harbor is actually, on a round-trip basis, two days closer to Pacific Rim destinations than any other port in the Pacific Northwest United States. [See Map 3.]

It is easy to see how this shorter distance saves an enormous amount of time and money, while also eliminating thousand of dollars in toll fees charged for Gulf shipments to traverse the Panama Canal.

Closing

AGP and the Port of Grays Harbor. An exceptional team offering a remarkable opportunity for high quality U.S. agricultural products delivered in half the time.

For more information, visit www dot AGP dot com.