Sacramento—Yara held a ribbon cutting ceremony on March 21 at its West Sacramento Terminal, marking its transition to a fully integrated Yara site since the company’s purchase of the facility from Agrium in December 2015 for $27 million (GM Dec. 7, 2015). About 75 were on hand for the event, which coincided with National Ag Day and featured a lunch and tours of the facility.
Yara invested an additional $4.5 million to convert the former UAN production plant into an import terminal for UAN and urea, which it receives from the U.S. and overseas. The West Sacramento Terminal received its first dry bulk cargo of urea last October (GM Oct. 7, 2016). Liquid UAN service at the site has been in operation since March 2016.
More recent improvements include completely reskinning the 29,000 mt urea warehouse, utilizing energy-efficient translucent panels to allow natural light to enter. Yara said the dock is currently being redesigned to improve safety and efficiencies during dry vessel discharge operations.
“West Sacramento is an important part of our growth ambitions,” said Magnus Ankarstrand, president of Yara North America. “It is a large site with additional available capacity and our aim is to grow it, utilizing the flexibility of the free capacity to optimize our distribution pattern in California. Yara’s business from the West Sacramento terminal will impact half a million acres of crop production across 20 different large-acre crops, which in turn will generate $500 million of farm revenue this year.”
Among those in attendance was West Sacramento City Manager Martin Tuttle. “Yara’s investments in the West Sacramento Terminal add momentum to our city’s push to be a global food and ag hub,” Tuttle said. “Their team’s expertise and the products they provide to ag customers are highly regarded, and a huge source of pride to us.”