WESTLOCK – Shareholders and special guests filled the boardroom at the Canadian Tractor Museum Nov. 2 for 21st annual general meeting of the Westlock Terminals to hear how this past crop year went for the operation.
Board chair Gary Golby opened the meeting, by welcoming guests and the current board of directors, which includes Jim Lawrence, Bill Hall, Jim Greilach, Harry DeWindt (secretary/treasurer), Josh Kaliel, Ted Wierenga, Brian Trueblood (vice-chair), Terry Byvank, Johann Von Rennenkampf and recording secretary Linda Hall.
Terminals CEO Clifford Bell noted while every year presents its challenges, “we seem to always weather the storm, and with a lot of input and a lot of hard work by a lot of people involved, we seem to come out the other side and be whole.”
“We had a pretty good year last year. We punched through about 168,000 tonnes. We were faced with another zero-to-40 mile radius of not-so-great crops, so once again we reached out to surrounding areas,” said Bell. “We bought grain all the way from Grande Prairie, LaCrete, Saskatchewan and points in between. And we were able to mix and match.
“We’re in a situation nowadays where we’re making sales that are very specific to quality. We don’t have the luxury of just shipping whatever we happen to have in our local area; so we really rely on different areas of the province to be able to source grain and be able to ship it and be able to turn a profit from it. We were fairly successful in doing that.”
While not a record year in grain handling, 2022 was considerably better than the previous two years.
“I like to think we were successful because we met all the challenges that we faced and still able to record a profit, albeit small. Every year is a bit of a different challenge for us. We take each year as it comes.”
Bell noted in this past year, the Terminals started trans loading alfalfa pellets in rail cars for Legal Alfalfa. He said there were improvements in the trucking program last year with sourcing of grain from different areas with their own trucks and working with third party carriers as well, did over 2,000 truck movements, about 200 to 250 per month, all inter-provincial.
Bell said there are challenges with the rail car situation as they’re “just going on general allocation.”
“That presents a bit of a challenge for us going forward. To keep stability in our shipping program, we decided to keep our own rail cars.”
He added the Terminals rail cars are down to about five years life left — there are still 24 of the original 25 cars Terminals purchased a few years ago as one was de-commissioned earlier.
He said the Terminals has a pretty-aggressive budget this year, about 221,000 to 231,000 tonnes, which they “think it’s achievable. “
One of the big purchases for the Terminals was the $1,471,000 outlay for the Millwest Farms (Albert Miller) home quarter west of Westlock, property that “could be a specific (sea) can loading facility and space for grain drying capacity that we’ve always been looking for and truck loading space.”
The property also provides a dispatch area for the trucks, small stock storage and shop space, plus the opportunity for diversification for any value-added agriculture or projects. He pointed out the $1.5 million investment is not that significant in the big picture of Terminals capital expenditures since 2008, a total of about $18.1 million,
“And at the end of the day, we had zero debt, so $1.5 million for the Miller property was within our ways and means.”
A couple of the near future plans for the property include a specific can loading facility for sea cans and kicking tires on a small-scale crush plant.
“But for the most part, it gives us space and the opportunity for growth down the road.”
Wrapping up the AGM just before question and answer period, Golby, noted while 2021-22 had its challenges, much like the past five years, 2022-2023, according to current trends, “should be exceptional because of two things: volume and quality. I think it’s trending in the right direction.”
