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- Aug 22, 2008
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On Friday, Lakeside Colony secretary and Lethbridge Inland Terminal board director Joseph Wipf officially opened the $23-million concrete and steel bin grain company operations. The farmer-owned, farmer-built terminal, the only one in Alberta, sits full of grain and waiting for its first sizable allotment of rail hopper cars through the Canadian Wheat Board in about 10 days. It has the capacity to load a full unit grain train of 112 hopper cars in less than 24 hours to capture significant freight savings to Vancouver. Premier Ed Stelmach headlined the platform, praising the R.K. Heggie family and the courage and conviction of 200 shareholders, 99% of them farmers, for creating a grain terminal to allow them greater control of their own grain production and marketing destiny. Norman Fodness of Lethbridge, CEO and terminal and company manager, said the first grain hit the driveway Aug. 28 and 1,100 semi truckloads later, the terminal is full awaiting rail cars to move the grain to the Cargill export terminal in Vancouver where LIT has a handling agreement. He urged farmers across southern Alberta to consider LIT. “This is a fully commercial grain terminal that will rely on the Canadian Wheat Board and the Canadian Grain Commission to get us where we have to go.”
Mark Schell of Gull Lake, SK, CEO for South West Terminal which is a major shareholder at LIT, cautioned farmers in southern Alberta to withstand a myriad of special offers from competing grain companies like transportation incentives and grade deals. The terminal is expected to attract grain from Bow Island in the east to Vulcan in the north and all points to the south and west. It has a full-time staff of 12 with assistance from a Red Deer accountant, Vancouver Island grain marketer and a Winnipeg-based rail and wheat board specialist. LIT will cater mainly to the key grains that can be marketed in volume while building a market presence in the southern Alberta feedgrain market. It will handle other grain if considered profitable for farmers and the terminal. It sits on nine acres of a 211-acre parcel that company president and board chairman Darcy Heggie promised will be developed into an agricultural value-added industrial park with business and industry that can complement the grain-handling business or meet the needs of farmers. He said location is critical to success. It sits along the main north-south CP line linking Alberta with the US and the Canamex Highway network linking Fort McMurray and Mexico.
(Lethbridge Herald 081027)
Mark Schell of Gull Lake, SK, CEO for South West Terminal which is a major shareholder at LIT, cautioned farmers in southern Alberta to withstand a myriad of special offers from competing grain companies like transportation incentives and grade deals. The terminal is expected to attract grain from Bow Island in the east to Vulcan in the north and all points to the south and west. It has a full-time staff of 12 with assistance from a Red Deer accountant, Vancouver Island grain marketer and a Winnipeg-based rail and wheat board specialist. LIT will cater mainly to the key grains that can be marketed in volume while building a market presence in the southern Alberta feedgrain market. It will handle other grain if considered profitable for farmers and the terminal. It sits on nine acres of a 211-acre parcel that company president and board chairman Darcy Heggie promised will be developed into an agricultural value-added industrial park with business and industry that can complement the grain-handling business or meet the needs of farmers. He said location is critical to success. It sits along the main north-south CP line linking Alberta with the US and the Canamex Highway network linking Fort McMurray and Mexico.
(Lethbridge Herald 081027)