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SC Iowa | I'll try to provide a collective response to several of the posts below..
1) Our plant runs 24/7/365.......we dump corn 5 days per week 95% of the time, sometimes an occasional Saturday like this week since we just got done cleaning out a steel tank and are in stocks re-building mode......at 975 bushels per truck, it takes 375 trucks per day for 5 days to provide the needs of the plant for a week. We typically have one planned maintenance period per month and are closed that day to work on our steep filling system and whatever needs to be done in the elevator area....We have three dumping bays and can unload about 45-50 trucks per hour. We are typically open from 6am to 4:30.
2) Space.....we two flat-bottomed steel tanks that each hold close to 1 million bushels of corn, and then we have concrete silo structure that holds about 250K.....there is about 225,000 of unflowable corn in the bottom of each of those tanks......so we normally have 2.5-5 days corn supply.
3) We allocate trucks to minimize waiting times. As more and more folks got trucks, our waiting times ballooned to 2+ hours and no matter the jawboning, no one wanted to be the person to wait and haul later. We now can provide 20-40 minute unloading times about 90%+ of the time.
4) Rail corn----we used to buy rail corn in 25/50/75 car trains. As our road infrastructure improved in SE Iowa, and corn crops grew, we were able to start sourcing 100% of our corn by truck since 2000. Trust me, if rail corn was cheaper we would be buying it instead of truck corn. At a place like this, one cent on corn basis is $900,000 per year.....adds up pretty fast.......since we have been out of the rail market for 12 years, we find ourselves in a tough spot if needing to re-enter as the market is now all about 100+ car shuttle trains and the need to unload them in 16 hours. To upgrade our system to do that would take $10-15 myn when you are talking about 50-60K/hour legs and conveyors..
Garvo----if I recall, you are in a somewhat unique situation because you have ground ear corn. And I certainly know that those critters need to eat everyday....
The example I used was meant to show just how strong old crop basis levels are when you calculate them off of December futures. That value WILL erode over time, we just don't know how fast and when.
Ray J | |
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Ray J response to thread below...
