Elevator expansion
Eight silos to add million bushels of storage east of SurreyBy MARVIN BAKER, Staff Writer mbaker@minotdailynews.com
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VOLTAIRE A major grain elevator expansion in Ward County will add a million bushels of storage and shuttle loading capability.
Dakota Midland Grain merchandising manager Ted Warehime and board president Steve Ashley said the expansion will take place in the form of eight concrete silos that will be similar but slightly taller than the Hensler facility west of Washburn.
It will be located a couple of miles east of Surrey on the Deering road. The new elevator will be north of U.S. Highway 2 and just north of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad tracks.
Warehime said the facility will have a circle track, one in which 110-car unit trains can be loaded quickly and efficiently and it's also a system that allows the entire train to remain on site while the train is loaded.
"The railroad leaves the locomotives attached," Warehime said. "They train our people to run the locomotives."
According to Warehime, the expansion was necessary in order for Dakota Midland Grain to continue growing as a grain handler. He said the board chose to go with concrete instead of steel because it is said to be longer lasting.
"If we don't grow, we fade away," Warehime said. "The business plan indicated it and we wanted to get it to where it made sense."
In addition to Voltaire, Dakota Midland Grain has grain handling facilities in Norwich, Velva, Minot and Drake and anhydrous ammonia facilities in Norwich, Deering and south of Minot. The main agronomy center will remain in Voltaire.
The new facility will be built specifically for bulk handling of commodities such as wheat, barley and corn. The other facilities will continue to handle other crops like flax, soybeans and sunflowers, but the Surrey location will be designed for efficient loading.
Voltaire, which is located on the Canadian Pacific Railway line and already has a 1.2-million-bushel capacity, will continue to handle wheat as well.
Ashley added even though the Surrey facility will hold one million bushels of wheat or barley, construction plans call for expansion possibilities.
"Who knows when or if, but the capability will be there," he said.
When all the preparation work is completed, which is expected to continue through the winter, Warehime said the silos will take approximately nine or 10 days of continuous concrete pouring to finish.
Ashley added a special concrete form is used that slips up as the concrete sets and dries.
It's unclear how many construction workers will be on site at any one time, but Warehime said the facility will add about seven or eight employees to a current staff of about 25, depending on the time of year.
Cost of the facility wasn't immediately disclosed.
With a groundbreaking scheduled for Aug. 18, Ashley said construction should take about a year and the facility should be open for business by July 1, 2009, just in time for the wheat harvest.
Dakota Midland Grain is the second elevator in northwestern North Dakota to take on a major expansion project in 2008. BTR Co-op near Churchs Ferry completed a million-bushel expansion earlier this summer.
"The permitting is all done through government agencies," Warehime said. "Everything is in place and we're ready to dig."
