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Staging for the future

Wind blows supply chain company to Minot

A company that’s providing a staging ground for a future wind farm is adding value to the region’s energy industry.

Watco Supply Chain has leased about 80 acres in Minot Area Development Corp.’s industrial park as a staging area for a northern North Dakota wind farm. Wind equipment components came in from Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, Canada and Mexico over nearly three months.

For components arriving by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, cranes were used to offload the equipment, which will remain at the site until the wind farm company is ready to have the equipment moved to its site for installation, which could be eight months to a year, said Barth West, Watco vice president of operations. Some components too large for rail transport arrived by truck.

Watco also has 25,000 to 30,000 square feet of indoor storage space in northwest Minot for more sensitive equipment, such as electrical components.

During the height of the moving, there were as many as eight Watco team members and temporary help hired locally.

“We currently have two full-time employees that stay up there with the project to just have presence there, and we also perform some maintenance on this equipment. A lot of these wind components, even though they are sitting in storage, they still have to be maintained,” West said.

During its peak, the project brought members of the Watco team, truck drivers and others to Minot, where they booked hotels, ate in restaurants, purchased fuel and tools and contributed to the local economy. Watco also contracted with a local road and dirt work company to bolster the Minot yard to support the weight and traffic of this freight before it arrived.

“I know the City of Minot and the region experienced a nice uptick in sales and tax revenue from this activity,” West said.

Although Watco leased property for its laydown yard for this one project, there is potential for future contracts for additional staging and storage into the future, West said. The site could be used to assist additional wind farms or other types of companies that want to store product, he said. The company already has had inquiries.

“You just never know. But we do know we have to be ready at a minute’s notice if called upon,” West said.

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