CARGILL Australia’s storage and handling business GrainFlow has added to its grain receival network, purchasing family owned storage site Corglen at Narrabri.
The site has 130,000 tonnes of storage, mainly in flat sheds and is used primarily for storing cottonseed.
Cargill Australia general manager of customers Ben Fargher said the site would be mainly used for storing cottonseed for use at the company’s Narrabi cotton crushing plant which produces oil for domestic consumption and cotton meal for the livestock industry.
“It is located virtually a stone’s throw from the crushing plant, so it works in well.”
The site is road only, but Mr Fargher said given the plant, which will use up the lion’s share of the seed at the site, was nearby, a rail siding was not as important as in other cases.
“We’ve got other sites in the area and they are serviced by rail, but in this case we are comfortable with it being road only in terms of deliveries.”
The site will be used for more than just cottonseed, Mr Fargher saying it will also receive winter crop.
“We will take wheat, chickpeas and other crops, with the idea of providing local growers with more competition for their grain,” he said.
He said with good planning, spreading receivals across both the winter and summer crop would not be a problem.
The site fits in well with GrainFlow’s geographic footprint in northern NSW, with sites at Beanbri, 60 kilometres to the west and Bellata, 45km to the north.
He said with upgrades to other sites, there were more buyers offering a price in the network than ever before.
“We’ve done the upgrades and the end user customer is comfortable and that creates more opportunities for our grower customers.”
Mr Fargher said GrainFlow had a policy to try to be as flexible as possible with its bulk handling sites to meet customer needs, with a focus on mobile equipment that can be shifted to meet customer needs according to the season.
“We have a lot of portable equipment, so if there is customer demand at a specific site we can keep up.”
He said GrainFlow had a long working history with the previous owners of the Corglen site and when the owners announced they wanted to sell, GrainFlow made an offer.
The purchase price was undisclosed, but industry sources suggest it was in the millions of dollars.
The GrainFlow network now has 23 sites, spread across Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia.