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ADM expands its STL grain facility

ADM is doubling rail and barge capacity at its St. Louis grain facility.

“Being able to provide another outlet for grain gives us a competitive advantage and will only help the producers in the area.”

Travis Sayers, a regional manager for ADM, says the barge expansion was completed earlier this year.

“We have two docks here and can load two barges at the same time. On one of our barge towers, where we load barges, the river belt that went out to that dock was a 30,000 bushel an hour belt. We doubled the capacity of that belt to 60,000 bushels an hour.”

Sayers says ADM is loading products like soybean meal from its crush plants in North Dakota, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska on barges faster to ship to New Orleans for export.

“We’ve always exported soybean meal out of the United States, but I think the amount of meal being exported will continue to increase as more production comes online.”

The rail expansion isn’t finished, but Sayers says once completed, ADM will load two rail cars at once, simultaneously. Another ladder has also been added to the ladder track, which can hold more cars.

“It reduces the amount of time it takes to load a train drastically,” he says. “Before, we could load a train in 15 to 20 hours. And now, we are expecting to load a train in 12 to 13 hours.”

The rail improvements will help corn get to Mexico, cattle feeders in Texas or can move grain to New Orleans when river levels are low.

Sayers says the rail project is expected to be completed by the end of July.