WOLSELEY, AUSTRALIA — Viterra is investing A$35 million in its Wolseley grain facility to improve safety, expand the site and create efficiencies and value for customers with greater storage and rail capacity in what the company said is the single largest investment in its upcountry network.

The project will transition the site to fast-rail loading, which will reduce freight costs and help move more tonnes of grain to Viterra’s Adelaide ports for export in the first half of the year to meet buyers’ needs while helping growers achieve a premium for their grain, the company said.

Strategically situated on the Melbourne-to-Adelaide freight rail line, Viterra’s Wolseley location supports local grain growers in the southeast region of South Australia and western Victoria, connecting them with domestic and international markets.

Viterra said this project is another step in the company’s goal of making the South Australian supply chain more efficient to compete with interstate and international markets of Black Sea, Canada, United States and South America. It’s one of the many long-term investments we’re making to strengthen our network to the benefit of growers, buyers, the community and industry.

This image shows Viterra's proposed upgrades for its Wolseley, Australia, grain facility.

| Credit: ©VITERRA

Stage one of the upgrade will include a larger marshalling area to improve access to the site during peak harvest periods and prevent trucks queueing on the external road; existing roadways improvement and new roads; automated grain samplers; two classification centers to improve turnaround times onsite; two automatic weighbridges, with one new and one existing upgraded to 50 meters for increased truck sizes; extending and constructing new bunkers that will increase storage capacity to 400,000 tonnes; and upgrade of the existing onsite stormwater system.

Stage two will see two new rail bins that will allow Viterra to fill a 50-wagon train in under two hours, in comparison to the eight hours it currently takes at Wolseley; an inload shed for trucks to fill the bins and allow all-weather loading to prevent delays when moving grain to port; construction of a rail loop managed by rail freight provider Aurizon, allowing trains to loop around the bunker site for continuous loading.

Pending development approvals and awarding of work contracts, work is expected to start in September and take about a year.