CWB to Build Third Canadian Grain Elevator

Canadian grain marketer CWB said on Thursday it will build a third grain elevator on the western Prairies, as the former Wheat Board pieces together a crop-handling network.

Winnipeg-based CWB will build an elevator that can store 42,000 tonnes of grain near Pasqua, Saskatchewan. It expects the elevator, adjacent to a Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd line with the ability to load 134 rail cars, to open in January 2016.

The elevator is the latest project to expand Western Canada's grain-handling capacity, including country elevators and port terminals, as Canadian farmers increase production. Richardson International Ltd, Cargill Ltd and Viterra have also announced building projects.

Viterra said last week that it would build a grain terminal at Ste. Agathe, Manitoba, near the company's canola-crushing plant.

Ottawa stripped the former Wheat Board of its western wheat and barley marketing monopoly in 2012 and agreed to guarantee CWB's borrowings until it is sold or develops a plan to be self-sustaining by 2016.

CWB is also building elevators at Colonsay, Saskatchewan, and Bloom, Manitoba, and acquired in the past year Great Sandhills Terminal and Prairie West Terminal in Saskatchewan, Mission Terminal at Thunder Bay, Ontario, and a terminal at Trois-Rivieres, Quebec.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; editing by Matthew Lewis)