It’s been about four years since the Port of Brownsville, TX, signed an agreement with agricultural commodity trading firm West Plains LLC to lease the port’s long-idled grain elevator and get it back in operation.
The Brownsville Herald reports that West Plains, a subsidiary of Houston-based BioUrja Group, invested at least $13 million in rebuilding and upgrading the facility and its electrical and conveyance systems, and in recent years the 3 million-bushel elevator has been active, transferring grain commodities like corn and sorghum to and from rail cars and trucks.
Late last month, 13 years after grain last crossed the bulk dock, 34,000 metric tons of Rio Grande Valley sorghum was loaded from the elevator onto the deep-draft vessel M/V Tian Fu for export to China. It was the first of four sorghum shipments West Plains plans to ship from Brownsville to China this year, according to the port.
