Speed and efficiency are catalyst for largest Midwest fertilizer plant

By ANDREA JOHNSON, Assistant Editor
Friday, April 13, 2007 9:25 AM CDT

Aerial view of Milbank West Agronomy Center. Notice the grain terminal to the left, and the fertilizer and chemical warehouse to the right. A 110 grain car shuttle train sits on the circle track.

MILBANK, S.D. - Farmers put their crops in quickly, so agronomic companies are building their operations larger to streamline the process of serving their members.

One example is Western Consolidated Cooperative. This farm cooperative just held an open house for their new Milbank West Agronomy Center.

The new site can store 44,500 tons of dry fertilizer - that's 89 million pounds of urea, di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), mono-ammonium phosphate (MAP), and potash.

According to West-Con officials, this building, which is the length of one-and-two-thirds football fields, is the largest of its kind in the Midwest.

The dry fertilizer building measures 459' by 160', with a storage area of 459' by 122'.

West-Con built a similar fertilizer warehouse at their headquarters in Holloway, Minn., back in 2001.

At the time, that facility was also the largest in the Midwest.

Holloway is about 50 minutes straight east of Milbank, and about 50 miles west of Willmar.

West-Con has built a business structure around the concept of maximizing efficiencies. The cooperative was one of the first to adopt and build facilities to serve 110-car grain shuttle trains.

By using shuttle trains to obtain and ship products, the cooperative gets the lowest freight rates. The dollars are passed on to farmers - both in savings on the buying side and gaining income on the selling side.

“Everything is about capacity, speed and the railroad. You have to get the rail cars loaded or unloaded in a short amount of time, so you need large facilities to maximize efficiencies,” said Ken DeBuhr, operations manager.

DeBuhr is responsible for overseeing the construction of facilities for West-Con.

West-Con purchased the Harvest States elevator in Milbank several years ago. Initially, the coop sold seed and chemical and purchased grain there, but Milbank-area customers asked for more.

“Everything we had was coming out of Holloway,” said DeBuhr. “When the farmer wanted to be out in the field, we had to run a truck for 45-50 miles, unload and go back. There were a lot of logistics. It was hard to get it all done.”

About two years ago, West-Con purchased 267 acres of farmland five miles west of Milbank and built a grain terminal.

They also built a large circle track coming off the Burlington Northern Sante Fe rail line.

The circle track can hold as many as 110 cars. The new terminal is so efficient that one train or 440,000 bushels of grain can be loaded in about seven hours.

Once the shuttle is loaded and the locomotives are hooked to the cars, it takes about three and a half days to get from western Minnesota/eastern South Dakota to the West Coast.

West-Con's new fertilizer warehouse is located about a quarter mile southwest of the grain terminal on the circle track.

Grain and fertilizer shuttle trains have different originations and destinations. The 110-jumbo car grain shuttles travel back and forth between receiving terminals and export or domestic terminals.

The 65-car fertilizer train shuttles back and forth between West-Con and fertilizer producers in Canada and the Gulf of Mexico as well as Florida and other states.

DeBuhr said West-Con gives tours to visitors from around the world who are interested in building similar facilities. To capture the economies of scale, businesses have to find ways to get products in and sent out quickly.

His sentiment was echoed by Gary Burau, president of Waconia Manufacturing, Inc. His company served as the contractor for the fertilizer handling and blending system.

“There's a lot of product coming into the United States,” said Burau. “A lot will come from overseas and phosphate comes from Florida. Now you have to have large equipment. You have to build everything larger. You need a big plant to handle that. These big farmers have big equipment. You have to keep up with them.”

The Milbank West fertilizer warehouse is intricate underground and aboveground.

Fertilizer is brought to an unloading area where the hoppers are opened to send product from the rail car into an unloading pit that can hold 100 tons or one rail car.

“The unloading tunnel is big enough that you could drive a pickup down there,” said DeBuhr.

A 142' conveyor moves 1,200 tons of fertilizer per hour, and sends it up an 85' warehouse leg. Fertilizer pours into a “tripper” - what looks like a huge coal car.

The tripper travels down a 502' belt to unload fertilizer into the appropriate bin.

A 100-ton rail car can be emptied in just five minutes, and a 65-car train can be emptied in about seven hours.

It takes 12 hours to empty that same fertilizer train in Holloway.

Two pay loaders are used to move fertilizer from the correct bin into two separate pits that have 350-ton/hour capacities.

The system includes two conditioners, two floor drag conveyors and two 127' discharge load-out legs. Fertilizer is placed in either the 200-ton blend tower for retail sales to farmers; or the 200-ton wholesale tower where a single fertilizer product is loaded for sales to wholesale operations.

In a second story control room surrounded with windows, an operator uses a computer/control system to load the correct fertilizer. A chute telescopes down from the tower to load fertilizer into the semi-trailer.

“We actually have 400 tons of product over head,” said DeBuhr. “That's the reason for big I-beams that can carry a lot of weight.”

The tower equipment also has to be strong because wind speeds are strong on the South Dakota prairie.

Additional products are sold at the Milbank West Agronomy Center, including chemical and seed. The site includes an 80' by 155' chemical and liquid fertilizer facility built with the same commitment to speed and streamlining as the dry fertilizer warehouse.

Liquid fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia are brought to the warehouse by rail. Both products are unloaded via hose to the proper storage facility. Two liquid cars can be unloaded at a time.

“The next thing coming in is a 2-million gallon liquid fertilizer tank,” said DeBuhr. “We'll be able to unload 10 cars at a time.”

The control room features a dedicated computer system to blend and load the appropriate analysis that each member requests.

Scales and meters are all standardized and checked by Weights and Measures, as well as by West-Con.

The liquid fertilizer handling equipment also includes a 15-ton mixer, a 3,750-gallon drop pit tank, 12-30,000-gallon fertilizer tanks and all of the required safety equipment and environmental controls.

The facility cost $8.5 million to build, and when you add up all of the stainless steel, plywood, and copper wiring, that's not surprising. The building includes 7,057 cubic yards of concrete - enough concrete to pour a sidewalk 3' wide and 4” thick for 37 miles.

If the same facility were in the design stage today instead of two years ago, the price tag would be closer to $10 million, officials say.

While the Milbank West Agronomy Center currently holds the title of Largest Fertilizer Plant in the Midwest, DeBuhr expects that sometime in the future another plant will claim that prize.

Farming today is all about maximizing efficiencies.

“Everything is about speed,” said DeBuhr. “The challenge is to have agronomy products in place when they are needed, so we have to be constantly aware of what's going on in the country.

“If there's a shortage of a product or a weather change that causes different planting intentions, we have to be proactive vs. reactive,” he added. “We intend to be ready to provide our members with the products they need, when they are needed.”

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