Facility Feature
Central Valley Ag Adds Nearly 1.5 Million Bushels of Upright Grain Storage at Rail Terminal

Oakland, NE — Central Valley Ag’s (CVA) rail terminal near Oakland, NE on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway had nearly 10 million bushels of storage space at the start of 2019. But half of that capacity was in temporary storage piles.

“We’re just trying to get more bushels under roof,” says Location Manager Rob Lindberg, who has been at Oakland for 26 years, long before CVA built the terminal in 2006-07.

This year, the coop added nearly 1.5 million bushels of upright steel storage: two 105-foot-diameter Behlen tanks, one rated at 675,000 bushels and the other at 750,000.

“We needed one to be taller than the other to build the fill conveyors above existing structures,” Lindberg says.

Steel tanks filled by enclosed conveyors

The contractor and millwright on the project was J&D Construction Inc., Montevideo, MN (320-226-2336). J&D has done numerous projects for CVA, most recently a new all-steel rail terminal at Linn, KS (covered in the March/April 2019 issue of Grain Journal).

Also on the project:

• KC Engineering, Sioux City, IA (712-252-2100), performed engineering work.
• Cross Country Construction, Elbow Lake, MN (218-685-6410), constructed the two Behlen tanks.
• Fremont Electric, Fremont, NE (402-727-4932), was the electrical contractor.

Construction began in March 2019 and was completed around Oct. 1.

The larger of the two tanks stands 105 feet in diameter, 92 feet tall at the eave, and 121 feet tall at the peak. It has outside stiffeners, flat floor, a 16-inch Springland sweep auger, and 24-cable TSGC grain temperature monitoring system and level indicators. Four 40-hp AGI Airlanco centrifugal fans supply 1/8 cfm per bushel of aeration.

The other tank stands 82 feet tall at the eave and 112 feet tall at the peak. It is similarly equipped to the larger tank, but its fans can generate 1/9 cfm per bushel.

The tanks are filled by a set of AGI Hi Roller 30,000-bph enclosed belt conveyors. Neither tank has sidedraws but instead empty onto another set of 50,000-bph AGI Hi Rollers in an above-ground tunnel.

— Ed Zdrojewski, editor

GRAIN JOURNAL September/October 2019 Issue

Company Info

York, NE • 402-362-0246

Founded • 2003

Storage capacity • 128 million bushels at 53 locations

Annual volume • 200 million bushels

Annual revenues • $1.4 billion

Number of members • 10,000+

Number of employees • 900

Crops handled • Corn, soybeans, hard red winter wheat, sorghum, oats

Services • Grain handling and merchandising, feed, agronomy, energy, marketing services

Key personnel at Oakland

• Rob Lindberg, location manager
• Matt Johnson, regional operations manager
• Andy Anderson, grain superintendent
• Russ Thede, merchandiser
• Dave Swenson, settlement specialist

Supplier List

Aeration fans • AGI Airlanco

Bin sweeps • Springland Mfg.

Catwalks • LeMar Industries Corp.

Contractor/millwright • J&D Construction Inc.

Control system • Fremont Electric

Conveyors • AGI Hi Roller

Conveyor belting • Continental

Electrical contractor • Fremont Electric

Engineering • KC Engineering

Grain temperature system • Tri-States Grain Conditioning

Insurance • Nationwide

Level indicators • Tri-States Grain Conditioning

Motion sensors • 4B Components

Motors • Toshiba International

Pilings • Longfellow Foundations Inc.

Steel storage • Behlen Mfg. Co.

Steel tank erection • Cross Country Construction

Tower support systems • LeMar Industries Corp.