In the News


New deep-water port links Midwestern growers to Pacific Rim buyers.

By Jean Van Dyke
February 2004
Courtesy of Feed and Grain Magazine Online

The Hendrik Group Inc., is featured in the Conveying section on the second page of this article.

The Midwest has gotten a lot closer to the Far East since the completion of Terminal 2 at the Port of Grays Harbor in Aberdeen, WA. In a joint venture, the Port, Ag Processing Inc (AGP), Omaha, NE, and the Puget Sound & Pacific Railroad (PSP) created a deep water port facility which is a day closer to the markets of the Pacific Rim than any other West Coast port, cutting two days from the journey. Since Asia currently imports one-third of the soybean meal exported by the United States and represents nearly all the increase in meal demand during the past 10 years, it is a market worth pursuing.

At the groundbreaking for the facility, AGP CEO Marty Reagan shared his vision of "a steady flow of railcars transporting agricultural products from the Midwest to the West Coast for connection with world markets." A year and four months after that groundbreaking ceremony, the first ship arrived in the port - but the process, from inception to completion, actually took more than four years.

Forging relationships

The development of the $14.5 million project began when AGP, the largest soybean-processing cooperative in the world, was looking for a place to store carloads of soybean meal and other products for loading ships at a port on the Columbia River.

"We called Tom Foster, the vice president and general manager of the short line, looking for an alternative," recalls Terry Voss, AGP's senior vice president of transportation. "He knew the Port had excess rail capacity. When he contacted them, they said 'We can do better than that,' and the process was underway. It took a couple of years of work and a lot of brainstorming by a team made up of people from the Port, the railroad and AGP's processing, marketing, transportation, engineering and legal departments."

The reason the Port could do better than just provide storage was that in addition to excess rail capacity, it had an underutilized terminal and dock, deep-water capacity and relationships with the other parties needed to make the project a success.

The Port of Grays Harbor

Formed in 1911, the port's heyday was when old growth forest was being harvested. "Wood - logs, lumber, pulp and paper- will always be part of what we do," says Gary Nelson, executive director of the Port of Grays Harbor. "But wood doesn't take up as much room as it used to, so we've turned to other tenants. Currently, we have 100 tenants, ranging from beer distributors to yacht builders.

"We're located on an estuary, with a channel which offers a 40-foot sailing depth for the 12 miles to the ocean. The short-line railroad, the Puget Sound & Pacific, connects with both BNSF and UP in Centralia, WA.

"The port encompasses 1,400 acres, with a 600-slip marina, an airport, marine terminals and industrial properties. AGP/PGH is the first grain terminal.

"This project was truly a team effort between the port, the shortline railroad and AGP," Nelson explains. "We also included union members in the process - they helped us design the facility and set up the people to man it.