Louis Dreyfus Expands Number of Terminals

FTLComm - Tisdale - January 14, 1999
Operating in twenty-five countries with its head office in Paris France, Louis Dreyfus is involved in trading of various agricultural and oilseed commodities, product refining and processing and the petroleum industry. Its move into the grain handling business in Canada is relatively new with its first three 700,000 bushel metal high throughput terminals located in Virden and Rathwell Manitoba, Tisdale Saskatchewan. These three facilities are virtually identical operations that went intofull receiving and shipping in
September of 1998. Another smaller terminal is operated at Wilson Alberta (near Lethbridge). The company added to these facilities with the purchase of an existing 3,700 and 3,500 tonne outlets at Rivers Manitoba and a similar one at Innisfail Alberta. Though the development of these facilities is a new presence for the company in Canada they actually have been doing business in this country since 1941.

But it would appear that these new facilities are about to become part of a larger operations as three identical facilities to the Tisdale terminal are to be constructed at Aberdeen, Wilkie and Glenavon. The Aberdeen terminal will have a one third larger capacity like that of Rathwell Manitoba because it will have condo storage available. This new addition is to be located at the junction of highways 27 and 41 on a CN line.

Louis Dreyfus has elected to establish metal terminals because they can be erected in about half the time need for the concrete versions selected by Saskatchewan Pool, Pioneer Grain and UGG which take almost a year to construct. The Dreyfus terminals are designed to be able to load fifty-seven cars in ten hours