Wolseley’s Viterra site will see massive expansion in the coming months, as the company looks to invest $35 million into the site.
The investment will improve safety, expand the site and create efficiencies and value for the grower and buyer customers and the local community.
Viterra Chief Operations Officer James Murray said the project was an important step in Viterra’s focus of making the South Australian supply chain more efficient to compete with interstate and international markets of Black Sea, Canada, US and South America.
“It’s one of the many long-term investments we’re making to strengthen our network,’ he said.
“Our Wolseley site is a key asset in the Viterra network.
“Its position on the Melbourne to Adelaide freight rail line allows us to introduce fast rail loading to the site to connect local growers with our Adelaide ports, including our deepwater Outer Harbor terminal for the most efficient route to export, playing a significant role in supporting local growers in the south east region of South Australia, and western Victoria, and connecting them with domestic and international consumers.”
He said the community will also see the benefits of the project, with the wider marshalling area preventing trucks from having to queue on the external roads to enter, less trucks moving grain from the bunker to the silo site, reduction in CO2-e emissions due to greater volumes of grain moved on rail instead of truck and improved stormwater management.
Mr Murray also said there will also be economic benefits to the region during construction and operations through job generation and increased local spend.
“This project is our single largest investment in our upcountry network and aims to meet the evolving needs of growers and the industry now and into the future,’ Mr Murray said.
“It will improve the grower delivery experience with additional bunker storage, state of the art classification centres and new and extended weighbridges, marshalling areas and roadways.
“It will also transition the site to fast rail loading which will provide reduced freight costs that we pass back to growers and help move more tonnes to our Adelaide ports for export in the first half of the year to meet our buyer customers’ needs and assist growers to achieve a premium for their grain.
“This investment is in addition to the $40 million we invest into our sites annually where it provides the greatest value to our customers through creating efficiencies, improving reliability and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our network.”
The project will be completed in two stages to ensure grower deliveries are not impacted during harvest.
Stage one will involve the marshalling area, upgrades to existing roadways and new roads, automated samplers which provide a more accurate sample of growers’ grain, two state of the art classification centres which will improve turnaround times onsite, two automatic weighbridges, extending and constructing new bunkers, increasing storage capacity to 400,000 tonnes and the upgrade of the existing onsite stormwater system to limit run off into the council system.
Stage two will focus on bringing fast rail loading to the site to move more grain to allow Viterra to better meet demand.
It will involve two rail bins which will allow us to fill a 50 wagon train in under two hours, an inload shed for trucks to fill the bins and construction of a rail loop.
Viterra are planning to complete the grower delivery experience improvements before harvest starts, ongoing bunker expansions from November onwards and finish the fast rail loading stage in the last third of 2024.
“Our team has been working hard through the planning process of this project, seeking feedback and collaborating with growers, supply chain partners, council and local residents to ensure we can maximise benefits for all,” Mr Murray said.
“We’re excited to progress the project with the submission of our development application for stage 1 next month.”
