February 12, 2004
AGRICO WINS SHIPLOADER CONTRACT
Agrico Sales, headquartered in New Orleans Louisiana has been awarded an Engineering Procurement and Construction contract by Oxbow Carbon & Minerals LLC to provide, on a turnkey basis, a shiploader at their Texas City, TX (formerly Aimcor) site.
The shiploader is scheduled to startup in late September of this year.
The project includes the design, fabrication and installation of a 2500tph shiploader that loads petroleum coke, to Panamax class or smaller vessels. The new shiploader is replacing an existing shiploader. Removal of the old loader is included in Agrico’s scope of work.
Due to inventory considerations, the total down time for removing the old and installing the new shiploader is limited to seven weeks. Agrico’s practice of delivering the shiploader assembled in two major components and pre-wired allows for the short down time.
Agrico’s scope of work also includes modifications to the existing feed conveyor, needed to accommodate the new shiploader. Electrical and control upgrades will also be performed by Agrico in association with this project.
The shiploader is a fixed tower design, with a boom that shuttles and rotates to facilitate ship loading. A loading spout with a trimming spoon will be used. Agrico has built seven of this shiploader design and currently has three others under fabrication, in addition to the one for Oxbow. These other three shiploaders will deliver to Europe later this year, for a green field grain terminal Agrico is constructing.
April 23, 2004
AGRICO AWARDED ALASKAN WOODCHIP PROJECT
Agrico Sales, Inc. (www.agricosales.com) of New Orleans Louisiana, USA was awarded an Engineering Procurement and Construction Supervision contract by NPI, LLC. Under this contract Agrico will provide a woodchip receiving, storage and shipping terminal in Valdez Alaska. The terminal will load woodchips to ships at 1000tph.
The first shipment from the Valdez Terminal is scheduled for July of this year. When operational, NPI will receive and ship 250,000 tons of aspen and white spruce woodchips. This facility will primarily service the Asian market.
The major challenge in designing the terminal was that several conveyors must be completely portable. This is due to the massive snow removal requirements in Valdez, which averages over 8.2m (325 inches) of snow per year. Conveyors also must be portable so they do not block roadways, stopping activities other than the woodchips.
Agrico met the challenge by designing conveyors supported on heavy duty, completely self-sufficient trusses. The trusses are moveable, with one of the several cranes at the terminal. These 43m (140 feet) truss sections are supported at each end and receive electrical power at the foundations. The foundations align and locate the conveyors in the proper position, for receiving and delivering woodchips from the other conveyors.
A 76m (250 foot) truss supported conveyor spans from the shore to the floating dock. In addition to the heavy snow load complicating this long span, the floating dock also has a tidal fluctuation of almost 7m (22+ feet) and a longitudinal movement of plus or minus 1m (3 feet) for which this conveyor truss must allow.
The need to make all equipment removable also extended to the 213m x 30m (700 x 100 foot) floating dock. Agrico designed a 5m x 3m (16 x 10 foot) tower at the back of this dock, which is the only permanent dock structure required for woodchip loading. The 1.52m (60 inch) x 49m (160 foot) belt conveyor ship loading boom is supported on the tail by this dock tower, while the head end is supported by a large crane. When not in use the Port of Valdez can completely remove all of the woodchip loading equipment, from the dock except for the small tower.
The NPI terminal is Agrico’s first project in Alaska but not in the Pacific northwest. In 2001 Agrico completed a shiploader for the BCR Marine, Vancouver Wharves Terminal, in North Vancouver B.C.
Agrico is also building a complete grain terminal in northern Europe and a shiploader for solid fuels in Texas.
February 12, 2004
AGRICO AWARDED EUROPEAN GRAIN TERMINAL PROJECT
Agrico Sales, of New Orleans Louisiana, USA has been awarded an Engineering Procurement and Construction Supervision contract by Ventspils Grain Terminal (VGT), to provide a railcar unloading, grain storage and ship loading system at the Port of Ventspils, Latvia.
The Terminal is scheduled to begin operation in the first quarter of 2005. When operational, VGT will receive 2.5 million tons per year by rail of high quality grain products from Kazakhstan.
After weighing, with a dynamic weigh in motion scale, two railcars of grain can discharge at the same time. A series of drag conveyors, belt conveyors and an elevator leg deliver the grain products, at 1000 metric tons per hour, to eleven Behlen storage silos totaling 73,0000 metric tons (approximately 2.7 million bushels). Under silo conveyors reclaim the grain and in conjunction, with an elevator leg and belt conveyors, deliver it to three fixed tower Agrico shiploaders. The dolphin supported, shuttling and rotating shiploaders load up to Panamax class vessels, at 1500 metric tons per hour, without needing to move the vessels in order to complete loading.
The terminal is designed with considerations for minimizing dust and noise concerns. Examples of this are: down draft aeration fans that include mufflers and sound baffles, and dust free ship loading spouts.
Other equipment includes, a magnetic separator, fumigation system, wet grain silo, belt scale and an automatic sampler. An on site laboratory will be provided by VGT, for grain analysis.
The terminal is designed so that the storage can easily be increased once the facility is up and running.
Agrico has built dozens of grain terminal projects in the United States, but VGT is its first European venture. They have built seven shiploaders and in addition to the three for VGT have one under construction, for a major US pet coke terminal.
Ferruzzi Trading U.S.A.
1114 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
April 29, 1994
Mr. Frank Kelly
Agrico Sales
3413 River Road
Bridge City, LA 70096Dear Frank;
I just wanted to drop you a note of thanks for the great pictures of the Myrtle Grove facility, with "enhancements". It is a suitable culmination and memento to the Project.
More important, I want to thank you on behalf of Ferruzzi Trading U.S.A. for the work, efforts and accomplishments of Agrico Sales in the completion of the project. The completed work was of high quality and occurred with a highly effective quality/cost efficiency relationship. However, we anticipated this from a firm such as yours.
What was not anticipated, and proved to be an impressive and pleasant surprise, was Agrico Sales' ability to accomplish the work with such a minimum disruption to the operations of the facility, and our business. As I'm sure you know, the operational demands of our business created several scheduling disruptions on the Project. The ability of Agrico Sales to creatively overcome these obstacles greatly enhanced the benefit, by reducing our opportunity costs of curtailed capacity during construction. Separately, some of the further improvement ideas that you furnished (e.g. the new turn head), have accelerated the payback of the overall project.
As a last comment; even at times of difficulty and stress, which no major project is without, I was never aware of an instance where your team did not exhibit the highest level of cooperation and professionalism. Please convey our appreciation to them all, particularly their leadership.
I don't know if I personally will ever be in a position of influence in selecting or recommending a firm to perform similar project/construction activities in the future. If so however, Agrico Sales will be a serious contender.
Thanks again.
Yours truly,
Dan B. Couture
President
Chief Operating Officer
CII Carbon, LLC.
St. Bernard Highway
P.O. Box 1306
Chalmette, LA 70043
MARCH 8, 1992
To Whom It May Concern
Agrico Sales Inc. was awarded a six million dollar contract in August of 1991 by Chalmette Terminal, Inc. To construct a dock/terminal to handle 400,000 tons per year of petroleum coke for CII Carbon, LLC. The terminal included a river dock for receiving raw material (green coke) and shipping finished product (calcined coke), a 15,000 ton green storage building, 4200' of conveyors, and five calcined coke storage bins of 10,000 ton capacity each.
The project was completed on budget and 80 days early. Agrico earned a completion bonus by working from daylight to dark 6 days per week for six months.
The dedication and experience of Agrico's management and key superintendents was evident throughout the project. Much of the construction was performed without the aid of detailed prints and specific contract language detailing equipment to be included. Agrico built the system, going well beyond the terms of the contract on many occasions at no additional costs. They were determined to satisfy our needs and to provide CTI with a system that "worked". "Extras" were held to less than 3% of the contract amount.
I believe the management of Agrico to be honest and sincere and dedicated to building a reputation for quality work in the New Orleans Area as they have done in the Midwest.
With 15 years experience as a project engineer and plant manager, I do not hesitate to recommend their work to others.
Jeff Watkins
Construction Engineer
Chalmette Terminal Inc.
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