The former Robin Hood flour mill turned grain export terminal on the Ontario side of Lake Erie is under new ownership by its main user.
Minneapolis-based Ceres Global Ag announced Wednesday it has sold the well-known terminal at Port Colborne, Ont., about 30 km west of Buffalo, N.Y., to London Agricultural Commodities (LAC) for US$4 million.
The flour mill, built at what was then known as Humberstone to produce Robin Hood Flour during the Second World War, was shut down in 2008 by its then-owner, Horizon Milling (now part of Ardent Mills).
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Ceres took over the facility in 2010 and repurposed its two million bushels of storage capacity as a grain export terminal. In 2019 Ceres began a long-term storage and handling services agreement with LAC, committing most of the terminal’s capacity to LAC traffic.
Ceres’ employees at the terminal will now transition to work for LAC, the companies said Wednesday.
“This strategic move to take ownership of a facility we have previously leased further demonstrates our commitment to the industry and exercises our ability to efficiently plan for more internationally bound cargo shipments,” LAC president Richard Smibert said in a release.
LAC noted its deal to buy the site comes in the wake of a $45.3 million project announced Jan. 11 by the federal government and St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. for reconstruction and rehab work on three wharf sites at Port Colborne.
Port Colborne is at the south end of the Welland Canal connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. The federal government, which put up $22.7 million for that project under the National Trade Corridors Fund, said the project will help relieve “supply chain congestion” in the region.
“It is expected the facility will in time see increased cargo volumes to export markets served by southern Ontario farming exports of soybeans, wheat and corn,” LAC said Wednesday in its release.
The Port Colborne terminal’s storage capacity is the equivalent of about 50,000 tonnes of grain, with capability to handle truck, rail and vessel traffic as well as corn drying capacity of up to 1,200 bushels per hour at 10 points moisture removal.
London-based LAC, operating since 1985, runs a cash grain trading business focused on corn, wheat, food-grade identity-preserved soybeans and feed ingredients and byproducts. Along with Port Colborne, it owns two southwestern Ontario inland grain handling and processing sites, at Thamesville and Tupperville, and partners with 15 other inland grain handling facilities in the province.
On Ceres’ part, the deal “aligns with our long-term strategy of optimizing our footprint around our core products and the locations where we operate,” CEO Carlos Paz said in a release.
Ceres has recently dialed back on some of its business plans. Last summer it indefinitely shelved its previously announced plans to build a canola crush plant in southeastern Saskatchewan as it “re-examine(s) the economics” of that project.
The company last June also closed a deal to sell its special crops handling facility specializing in bird food at Ste. Agathe, Man., to Orenda Commodity Services. Ceres reported a gain of $3.7 million on the sale of the former Delmar Commodities site.
Ceres’ assets in the Canadian crops sector today include Manitoba-based Delmar Commodities’ other grain handling and soybean crush facilities, plus a U.S. border grain terminal at Northgate, Sask.; a former Cargill grain elevator north of Tisdale, Sask.; and minority stakes in Canterra Seeds and Saskatchewan shortline Stewart Southern Railway.
Last March, Ceres also extended its reach into North Dakota, picking up a 50 per cent stake in Berthold Farmers Elevator previously held by Columbia Grain. The Berthold business has grain handling sites at Berthold and Carpio, N.D., about an hour southeast of Northgate. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
