Growmark Inc, Bloomington, Ill., has acquired the Little England terminal in East Liverpool, Ohio, from S.H. Bell Company. The property is located northeast of Growmark’s current operation and has direct access to the Ohio River.
The transaction includes a river unloading cell, storage facilities, an office, scale, and crane. Growmark said there will be approximately 11,000 st of dry storage available at the Bell terminal once improvements are completed. There is the capability for another 6,000 st of storage down the road should Growmark decide it is needed.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Rod Wells, director, agronomy sales and operations, said the acquisition will enhance current operations, provide additional storage capacity, and improve overall operational efficiency. “This will also give us another option to offload barges at East Liverpool, which is a high volume facility. Additionally, this will enhance our service to customers and those who are responsible for shipping product by truck from East Liverpool.”
Wells noted the purchase is an additional component of a major upgrade to the East Liverpool facility that began two years ago with the addition of new unloading equipment at the original Ohio River site. The upgrade project continued in 2010 with added automation at the current truck scale facility. Growmark said this debottlenecking of the current barge offloading system will significantly increase offloading speed into the facility once completed.
Growmark is on a roll in the terminal acquisition business, having acquired five others already this year, with one of those at Cincinnati, Ohio, with joint venture partner Bunge North America (GM Jan. 24, p. 1). Four were from CF Industries Holdings Inc. (Albany and Mapleton, Ill., St. Louis, Mo., and Cincinnati) (GM Jan. 10, p. 1), and another from George Lamb (Seneca, Ill.) (GM Jan. 10, p.10).