Canada’s G3 Building $50M Grain Terminal in Hamilton
G3 Canada Ltd. is expanding its eastern Canadian network with the construction of a $50 million grain terminal at Hamilton, on the western edge of Lake Ontario.
The 50,000-ton facility will handle wheat, soybeans, and corn grown in the Southern Ontario region to be loaded onto Great Lakes ships for transport, or onto railcars due for G3’s ports on Trios-Rivières and Quebec City for export.
The terminal, which is expected to be fully operational in time for the 2017 harvest, will offer year-round service through the linking Southern Ontario Railway with the two major Canadian railways to Quebec so that grain transportation does not stop when the St. Lawrence Seaway closes for the winter.
Grain “production in Ontario has been growing at a pretty dramatic rate and we’ve been eyeing this [new terminal] as a key component in our eastern origination strategy for some time now,” said Karl Gerrand, chief executive officer of G3.
In addition to this newest facility currently being constructed, G3 has seven grain elevators in Western Canada and four in Quebec, and a port terminal in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The group is also in the design stage for another grain terminal at the Port of Vancouver, and another four grain handling facilities across Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The terminal at Hamilton will complete the Southern Ontario grain pipeline for G3, and the company says it will now shift its focus on strengthening its presence in the Prairies with the construction of new terminals in Saskatchewan and Alberta that will supply the Vancouver terminal with grain to be shipped to Asian markets.