FWS Heads Up Yorkton Canola Crush Plant Expansion
As Richardson International marks the 25th anniversary of its entry into the canola crushing industry, its latest plant operates in full swing in Yorkton – the largest canola crushing plant of its kind, headed up in its construction by FWS.
Vice president of oilseed operations at Richardson, Tobias Dewey, praised the project as not only the largest construction project the organization had taken on – but “the largest canola crushing plant in the world”. By all accounts, it had an output to match its size – more than doubling its capacity from 1.1 million tonnes to a staggering 2.5 million tonnes.
Beyond sheer volume, this expanded plant is a model of efficiency – taking as few as 12 minutes from the time a truck initially enters the probing and scaling house to its exit from the facility. This is made possible by major modifications and upgrades during the expansion: three high-speed lanes, assisting in the unload of 250 super-B trucks per day.
Another three tracks – these being 9,500 loop tracks with spots for 950 rail cars – are spread across 17 kilometres of track, able to load over 520 rail cars per week. The facility itself is divided into three structural steel buildings: a seed preparation building, extraction building, and a refinery building, built across a construction term of 24 months. The Western Producer, reporting on the plant’s swift completion, writes “the project came in on time and on budget”.
With the plant already running at target capacity and Canada’s canola crush industry poised for a chapter of significant growth, the Yorkton plant represents a major achievement for all organizations involved. For more information as the project develops, read the full article here: Western Producer
