See for Yourself Participants Visit the Export Grain Terminal
June 26, 2016
As the See for Yourself group continued their journey in Washington State, they found themselves at the Export Grain Terminal (EGT). EGT, LLC is a joint venture between Bunge North America and ITOCHU International Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Japanese trading company ITOCHU Corp.
EGT is the newest export terminal in the Pacific North West (PNW). Located along the Columbia River, the $200-million-dollar facility received its first vessel in 2012. This terminal’s location is unique with its deep draft access to the river, access to all three rail lines and barge access.
The EGT site expands 137 acres with 43-foot water depth for Panamax-sized vessels. The facility has 124,000 mmt (4.7 million bushels) of storage with over 50,000 feet of rail track.
Multiple commodities including wheat, corn, soybeans and soybean meal are handled at this site. EGT can load 3,150 mt of product per hour.
Product from South Dakota is delivered to the port via railcar in 4 days. It costs on average $4,000-$6,000 per car (or on average $1 per bushel) to transport a shuttle car with grain from South Dakota to the port.
Once the train reaches EGT, cars are unloaded during an automatic unloading process where the train moves continuously at 1/3 mph while unloading. This process takes five to six hours. One shuttle train (110 railcars) will fill a Panamax vessel. Each panamax has seven different compartments making it easy to load and carry multiple grains at one time to our over seas customers.
The group continued to the Abernathy Fish Technology Center. Abernathy provides management of national fishery resources and develops new concepts and techniques to solve problems in aquatic restoration and recovery activities. Currently, Abernathy is experimenting with new feeds for different species of fish. While soybeans have not been used extensively at this facility because of the breeds of fish researched here, they have had success with including a 15% soybean meal diet for rainbow trout.
Dale Schwader of Howard and Steve Lounsbery of Montrose look inside tanks housing fish at the Abernathy Fish Technology Center near Longview, Washington.