COFCO International, Ltd. and GROWMARK Inc., on June 20, announced they have entered into definitive agreements regarding grain assets in Illinois.
Beijing, China-based COFCO International has agreed to purchase GROWMARK’s minority stake in a transloading facility located in Cahokia. In contrast, GROWMARK has agreed to purchase a Chicago grain warehouse facility, known as the B-House, from COFCO International.
The Cahokia facility is a grain and byproduct trans-loading terminal strategically located on the Mississippi River in the year-round St. Louis Harbor. It has access to all seven of North America’s Class I railroads, supported by over seven miles of private on-site rail track. It is capable of accepting up to four-unit trains (110 cars) at a time. It is a high-speed rail and truck-to-barge loading facility.
The B-House is located on the Calumet River, near downtown Chicago. The facility has a capacity of 11.5 million bushels, provides unparalleled flexibility to move grain through rail, truck, barge, and laker vessels, and facilitates imports and exports via the Great Lakes.
“We plan to continue investing in our US business, and we intend to pursue additional opportunities focused on supporting our US Gulf and Pacific Northwest export strategy,” said Zhijun (Jerry) Shi, chief operating officer of grains and oilseeds, for COFCO International in North America.
Matt Lurkins, GROWMARK’s vice president of grain and strategic relationships, said the acquisition will greatly benefit the Bloomington, Illinois-based cooperative. The cooperative provides agronomy, energy, facility engineering and construction, logistics products and services, as well as grain marketing and risk management services to its nearly 400,000 North American customers.
“GROWMARK is a farmer-owned cooperative,” he said. “That means the farmers growing the grain that gets traded through B-House will now participate in the returns generated from this supply chain link. We are excited to add B-House to our cooperatively owned grain assets portfolio.”
COFCO International, which does business in 36 countries, is the overseas agriculture business platform for COFCO Corp., China’s largest food and agriculture company. In 2023, COFCO International handled over 122 million tonnes of related commodities, with revenues of over $50 billion.