Grain Journal - July/August 2008 - (Page 58) Grand Entrance MISSISSIPPI FARM FAMILY BUILDS A GRAIN TERMINAL NEAR GREENWOOD Sidon MISSISSIPPI Express Grain Terminal LLC Sidon, MS • 662-453-0800 Founded: 2007 Storage capacity: 1.35 million bushels at one location Annual volume: 6 million bushels estimated Number of employees: 12 Crops handled: Corn, soybeans, soft red winter wheat Services: Grain handling and merchandising Key personnel: • Michael Coleman, CEO • John Coleman, president • David Lavender, general manager/merchandiser • Rob Joiner, operations manager Express Grain Terminal LLC’s new 1.35-million-bushel rail terminal in Sidon, MS, the first in its area to serve farmers who largely have switched from cotton to corn and soybeans. Photos by Ed Zdrojewski. Supplier List Aeration fans Chief Agri/ Industrial Division Bin sweeps Sudenga Industries Inc. Bucket elevators Chief Agri/ Industrial Division Bulk weigh scale InterSystems Bulk weigh software .. John Deere Agri Services Contractor .. Hayes Mechanical Inc. Conveyors .. Hi Roller Conveyors Elevator buckets Tapco Inc. Grain temperature system OPI Level indicators BinMaster Level Controls Motion sensors 4B Components Sampler InterSystems Steel storage Chief Agri/Industrial Division Tower support system Johnson System Inc. Truck probe InterSystems Truck scales Rice Lake Weighing Systems Farmers around Greenwood, MS, at the eastern edge of the Delta region, for a long time have lacked an important piece of infrastructure that producers in other parts of the country often take for granted – a nearby high-speed rail-loading terminal. Producers who wanted to receive terminal-level prices for their grain generally had to haul to the Mississippi River, an hour or more in trucking time. One family in the area, the Colemans, decided to correct that deficiency, raising $9 million to build a commercial rail terminal along the Canadian National Railway (CN) at Sidon, MS, a few miles south of Greenwood. Express Grain Terminal LLC began receiving grain with the wheat harvest that began in June 2008 and was expected to be ready to begin loading 100-car unit trains around Aug. 1. “There is a real need in this area for infrastructure,” says President John Coleman, whose father, Michael, serves as CEO. “Most of this area has been in cotton in the past, but with grain prices so high, today you have corn and soybeans as far as the eye can see.” The family-owned venture purchased land adjacent to the CN that had been owned by Leflore County and that already was zoned industrial. A fertilizer plant already had been built next door. Express Grain hired Hayes Mechanical Inc., Eudora, AR (870-355-4577), as contractor and millwright on the project. Coleman notes that Hayes had built the Delta Western’s grain receiving system at its catfish feed mill 35 miles to the west in Indianola, MS, and Express Grain’s managers were impressed with that project. Construction on Express Grain’s 1.35million-bushel, all-steel terminal began in September 2007. The Terminal Storage at Express Grain consists of a pair of 670,000-bushel Chief Titan corrugated steel tanks 105 feet in diameter, standing President John Coleman (left) and Operations Manager Rob Joiner. 58 GJ J/A
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