ABB board gives go-ahead to Adelaide grain container packing facility

<p>Integrated agribusiness ABB Grain would invest $6m initially in a port Adelaide grain processing facility in Moonta Road, it said today (Friday, July 6).</p> <p>ABB’s board has approved phase 1 of the three-stage project which will see a Prograin-badged container packing facility built alongside the company’s port Adelaide grain terminal.</p> <p>Prograin is headquartered at Laverton North in Victoria and has another facility at Dooen, near Horsham.</p> <p>Subject to approval from the Port Adelaide-Enfield Council, building work should begin in October and be completed by March.</p> <p>ABB managing director Michael Iwaniw said the development was the first stage of the development of inner harbour as South Australia’s premier precinct for &#8220value adding&#8221 agricultural products.</p> <p>&#8220We’ll be rolling out a range of projects over the next few years to support industry and farmers across SA, adding value to their produce,&#8221 he said.</p> <p>&#8220Our strategy is to leverage off ABB’s substantial asset base in port Adelaide, the site’s prime location adjacent to Joe White Maltings’s malthouse and its close proximity to the container export facility and the main railway connection to Melbourne.</p> <p>&#8220We’re also gearing up for the increased demand for wheat exports following amendments to federal legislation which were passed by Parliament on June 21 , with the amount of wheat being exported in containers predicted to double in coming years.&#8221</p> <p>Mr Iwaniw said the Prograin site was near Outer Harbour, where ABB was building a new deep sea grain terminal scheduled for completion next year, and &#8220near key intermodals with logistics benefits that would enable freight savings to be realised&#8221.</p> <p>It gave ABB the ability to establish inner harbour as a value-adding precinct once Outer Harbor came on line, Mr Iwaniw said.</p> <p>&#8220The new facility will have capacity to daily pack around 2,000 tonnes, or around 85 to 90 containers, and will have a direct conveyor connected to ABB’s extensive port Adelaide facilities with 450,000 tonnes of storage capacity,&#8221 Mr Iwaniw said.</p> <p>&#8220Shortly, we’re planning to develop stage 2 &#8211 a grain processing facility to clean and grade grain and a container handling yard to improve container handling efficiency.&#8221 </p> <br />