Capital Investment

In 2011, major construction activity was caried out at the Kensington location.  Investments in two dryers were required this past year, as that facility was dealt a major blow to its infrastructure in 2010.  The dryer and related equipment for Kensington, acquired in the fall of 2008, which represented a total investment at the time of in excess of $300,000 was completely destroyed by fire in the fall of 2010.  So too, was approximately $25,000 of soybean inventory.  A decision was made to replace that dryer with a new smaller unit and also replace another older dryer that had essentially become unservicable on site, with a used one.  This move means that total drying capacity remains roughly what it had been prior to the fire (65 mt per hour).  However the risk of loss due to fire has been spread out more evenly across these two newest dryers.  Both installations have enhanced safety features, and are closely supervised.

During 2012, staff are planning how best to re-configure the required infrastructure to deal with the growing year over year increase in the size of the cereal and soybean harvest.  GEC has handled roughly 50,000 metric tonnes per year for the last two years and, is expecting this trend to continue.  Current plans include the addition of 4,000 mt of new storage to deal with an extended harvest cycle which starts in August, and now ends in December of each year.