(Ben Tompkins/northeastNOW)

By Ben Tompkins

GRAND OPENING

G3 opens its newest grain elevator in Melfort

Aug 11, 2023 | 11:03 AM

The City of Melfort and the Rural Municipality of Flett’s Springs had a lot to celebrate on Thursday, as the local agriculture industry received a big boost.

G3 held the official grand opening of its newest high-efficiency grain elevator, right in the heart of the northeast.

“Exciting time for us up here in the northeast, this is the only G3 elevator in the northeast, so we’re excited to have a presence in the community,” said General Manager Greg Claypool. “The whole northeast area has good cropland and we always seem to be able to produce some grain up here, which is a key reason why G3 invested here.”

The grain elevator is set to load and unload grain, clean and dry it, store it, and ship it off to where it needs to go.

According to G3, it can unload a Super-B in less than five minutes and has 42,600 mt of storage, a 17,700 mt main house, 8,300 mt bins, a 150-car loop track, and can do rail shipping at 1,600 mt/hr.

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“The loop to loop, load to unload in Vancouver is kind of the key to the whole G3 system,” added Claypool. “Keeping rail cars full, in service, back into western Canada and back into the country to get refilled again is crucial, especially up in the northeast here where sometimes grain can get landlocked in the winter.”

“Having a state-of-the-art facility to be able to get those cars out in time and then being able to load at record speeds, it just helps the whole network out.”

FWS Group began construction of G3 Melfort in late 2021 and the project has proceeded safely and as planned.

The facility has already received its first loads of grain from area producers and loaded its first train in the middle of June.

“It just helped us get the bugs out of the system prior to harvest here, we’ve loaded two unit trains out of here within the third one sitting on the spot ready to load,” Claypool told northeastNOW. “It just gave us the opportunity to be ready for harvest, so we’ll be looking forward to when the combines really start rolling and we’re able to show the farmers in the northeast what we’re able to do.”

The grand opening included tours of the facility, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and remarks from a handful of government officials.

This included Prince Albert MP Randy Hoback, Minister of Agriculture David Marit, Melfort MLA Todd Goudy, Melfort Mayor Glenn Geroge, and the Reeve for the RM of Flett’s Springs Murray Stevenson.

Marit explained the Government of Saskatchewan is excited about these types of partnerships and knows that they will have a huge impact on the local communities.

“It gives farmers another opportunity and another place to do business, but it also helps on the employment side. A facility like this probably employs 30, 40, or 50 people, so those are good-paying jobs for the community,” Marit said.

“We’re also starting to see countries that are buying more Saskatchewan products and I think that this shows that the industry is seeing an opportunity here. They aren’t spending 30, 40, or 50 million on a facility like this and hiring a bunch of people without seeing some return.”

G3 Melfort is already active in the community, supporting local projects including a major sponsorship of the Melfort curling rink’s revitalization project.