A new grain handling facility will be open to Central Queensland grain growers and traders in a matter of weeks.
The depot is being built at Mt McLaren, near Clermont, by family-owned Queensland business NQ Bulk Storage & Logistics - part of the Sizer & Cogill group - and will be able to receive, store, maintain and out-load about 100,000t of grain.
The move is set to bring more competition to the region, with GrainCorp's grain handling site in close proximity.
Operations manager Hugh Paton said the site would be ready just in time for this year's winter crop harvest.
"We've got contractors there with scrapers, dozers and graders building pads there at the moment," Mr Paton said.
"The weighbridge will be in by the end of next week and we're only a couple of weeks away from taking our first loads of grain."
The new site is anticipating 100,000 tonnes of grain this year - mostly wheat and chickpeas - with an aim to double that next year and take a wider range of commodities.
There's plenty of excitement as traders and growers gear up for the CQ harvest.
"We're getting a lot of support. Everyone seems to be a little bit excited about it. We're getting a lot of phone calls from farmers and a lot of phone calls from traders," Mr Paton said.
"Some farmers are going to start harvesting in the next week or two weeks, so we've had to utilise all of our resources available, but we'll get it built."
Sizer & Cogill has been involved in road freight since starting in 1999 in Millmerran on the Darling Downs, but has since expanded dramatically.
In 2015, the company started working in Townsville, where it now has a depot servicing CQ and NQ's mining and agricultural industries.
Five years later, it launched NQBSL in close proximity to the Port of Townsville to fill a gap in the market for bulk storage, packing into containers and bulk for export and domestic distribution.
In 2020, the company started Sizer & Cogill Ag, which operates headers, tractors and chaser bins, and in 2021, it purchased more trucks and equipment to continue to service southern based customers based in Millmerran.
Most recently, the company announced it would be building its own purpose-built facility near the Port of Townsville in late 2022.
Mr Paton said the synergy between Mt McLaren and Townsville would open up CQ and the north.
"It will open opportunities up for Townsville for bulk exports," he said.
"The bonus of Townsville is you can run triple road trains out of Mt McLaren straight into our site in Townsville.
"It'll be all triple access straight in, straight out. It gives the north a bit more of an advantage."
The new facility will have 7000sq m of shed storage and 18,000sq m of available temporary storage pad.
It will also have a 50m weighbridge with a 200t capacity, with the ability to weigh any vehicle from a small rigid to triple road trains.
Mr Paton said once Mt McLaren was finished, everything heads to Townsville to start on the new site, with silos going up in mid-November.
Read more
