NEWS GRAIN
Growing room
C
urrently, United
Ag has roughly 5.2
million bushels of
grain storage capacity
split between four
locations, including El Campo at
420,000 bushels, Port of Victoria
at 400,000 bushels, Hillje at 3.3
million bushels and Danevang at
1.1 million bushels. The last storage
addition was in December of 2008
at the Hillje elevator when two
upright bins were added to increase
the capacity by 850,000 bushels.
Prior to the drought in 2011,
United Ag had operated at near
capacity levels in both 2009 and
2010. Since 2011, the elevators have
operated at 120 percent capacity
in 2012, 130 percent capacity in
2013 and 138 percent capacity last
year. United Ag has been able to
operate at above capacity levels
by shipping sorghum to port at
harvest, transferring corn bushels
to available storage further south,
utilizing our cotton warehouses as
flat storage (in 2012 and 2013), and
After
operating
over capacity
for three
straight
years, United
Ag adds
storage
capacity to
Danevang
location.
securing additional off-site storage.
Although each of these strategic
plans allowed our producers to
continue delivering grain with
little interruption and created the
ability for United Ag to turn away
zero loads, they still brought about
unnecessary cost and inefficiency.
The most notable costs were
excessive freight charges and the
inability to store sorghum to gain
basis appreciation.
These costs and inefficiencies
associated with insufficient storage
weighed heavily enough with the
United Ag Board of Directors that
a decision has been made to build
an additional 1.08 million bushels
of storage at the Danevang location.
The decision to place the additional
storage at Danevang was primarily
based on the lack of space needed
for grain coming from the south.
This additional storage will be in
the form of flat storage that will
provide flexibility to accommodate
other types of commodities, such as
cottonseed. The 42,000-square foot
flat storage building will be located
directly west of the cotton gin with
the pit near the existing grain dryer.
The pit will be set up to unload
both hoppers of a trailer at once allowing the facili