Photo courtesy of Associated British Port.
This shipment heralds an additional flow of soy animal feed for the port, taking advantage of the strategic location of King’s Lynn, which is close to one of the company’s main markets.
“We are delighted and very proud to work with Glencore Agriculture and provide them with the high standard and quality of service they require,” said Paul Brooks, ABP Port manager for King’s Lynn. This investment, together with the excellent reputation that King’s Lynn has developed for the handling of animal feed, provided Glencore Agriculture with a secure position to develop their sales operations into East Anglia and beyond.
The Port of King’s Lynn is undergoing a range of investments by ABP, including the construction of new bulk warehousing, larger capacity cranes and associated equipment.
“We are delighted to have started the delivery of soya meal to the Port of King’s Lynn,” said James Maw, managing director of Glencore Agriculture UK. “This is a significant development of our business within East Anglia, with the assistance of ABP. King’s Lynn gives us an extremely important new entry point to one of the key livestock producing areas of the UK. It further complements our nationwide commitment to supplying the animal feed industry with high-quality, cost-effective feed ingredients.”
Maw highlighted that East Anglian farmers keep over 27 million head of poultry, including half the country’s duck production. The region is also home to around 30% of the pigs in England; over one million animals.
“With dedicated import facilities and distribution channel, Glencore Agriculture provides a fully accredited and assured direct supply chain for quality products — from global production right through to U.K. consumers,” Maw said.
In October, Glencore Grain, a subsidiary of Glencore, announced the launch of an animal feed products marketing business in the U.K. The business will provide feed compounders and manufacturers with direct access to the company’s global resource of raw materials.
Glencore Grain has been trading since 1969 and has 180,000 employees at more than 150 locations. In 2014, the company had a turnover of $224 billion and total assets of $152 billion.
In September 2015, Glencore Plc announced it was seeking investors in its agriculture unit as part of a plan to reduce its $30 billion debt by $10 billion. In December 2015, the company said it already had reduced debt by $8.7 billion and had revised its debt reduction target to $13 billion.
Glencore Plc announced on April 6 that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Canada’s largest pension fund, plans to purchase a 40% equity interest in Glencore Agri for $2.5 billion. On June 8, the company entered a definitive agreement with British Columbia Investment Management Corp. for the purchase of a 9.99% stake in Glencore Agricultural Products for $624.9 million payable in cash upon closing.
Glencore Agri is a differentiated and vertically-integrated business focused on the global agricultural products value chain, Glencore said. Built around a network of high-quality origination and logistics assets, comprising over 200 storage facilities, 31 processing facilities and 23 ports, Glencore Agri is well-positioned in key export regions and in the trade of major agricultural commodities, including grains, oilseeds products, rice, sugar, pulses and cotton.
