July 8, 2025 • 39 mins
Port Pressures: Navigating Grain Facility Challenges with Smart Equipment Solutions
Sponsored by AGI – Ag Growth International
In this episode of the Whole Grain Podcast, host Jim Lenz, Director of Global Training and Education at GEAPS, is joined by Justin Paterson of AGI (Ag Growth International) to dive into the modern-day challenges faced by grain port facilities — and how innovative equipment and systems from AGI are helping operators tackle these head-on.
With 20 years of experience in the grain industry across both North and South America, Justin brings a unique global perspective to the discussion. Before joining AGI in 2018 as Vice President of Global Engineering, he served as Director of Engineering for a major grain handler in Canada. He holds degrees in Civil Engineering and Agriculture, and is a registered Professional Engineer and Professional Agronomist. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Justin is now based at AGI Brazil, just outside São Paulo, where he leads global engineering strategy for AGI’s commercial infrastructure.
From navigating logistical bottlenecks to enhancing throughput, safety, and operational efficiency, AGI offers scalable, smart solutions tailored to commercial grain operations. Justin shares insights from the field and explains how AGI collaborates with customers to design systems that meet the unique demands of port terminals.
Tune in to learn:
- What makes grain ports unique compared to inland facilities
- How AGI approaches problem-solving through integration and customization
- Trends shaping the future of commercial grain handling at scale
Whether you're new to the grain industry or a seasoned pro, this episode sheds light on the evolving needs of port operations and how forward-thinking companies like AGI are rising to the challenge.
Explore more about AGI
Website: https://www.aggrowth.com
Commercial Solutions Overview: AGI Commercial Landing Page
YouTube Channel: AGI on YouTube
LinkedIn: AGI on LinkedIn
Grain Elevator and Processing Society champions, connects and serves the global grain industry and its members. Be sure to visit GEAPS’ website to learn how you can grow your network, support your personal professional development, and advance your career. Thank you for listening to another episode of GEAPS’ Whole Grain podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (00:00):
Grain ports around the world under intense
pressure from rising demurragecosts to tighter space and aging
infrastructure.
In today's episode, we explorehow smarter equipment and
engineering can turn thesechallenges into opportunities.
Let's get started.
(00:24):
Hello and welcome to the show.
Welcome to the Whole GrainPodcast.
which feeds and fuels theworld.
(00:56):
This episode is proudlysponsored by AGI, Ag Growth
International, a global leaderin delivering equipment and
engineering solutions that helpgrain facilities operate safely,
efficiently, and at scale.
Today, we're turning our focusto a topic that affects
operations in the global stage,the growing pressures facing
grain port facilities.
(01:17):
As the world becomes moreinterconnected, port terminals
are facing tighter turnaroundtimes, stricter environmental
and increasing financialpenalties when delays occur.
And with limited space andaging infrastructure, the
challenges become even greater.
To help us navigate thesecomplex issues, I'm joined by
(01:38):
Justin Patterson, Vice Presidentof Global Engineering at AGI.
Justin brings more than 20years of experience in the grain
industry, including engineeringand construction leadership for
both country and portoperations in North America and
South America.
With degrees in civilengineering, Thank you.
(02:00):
In today's conversation, you'llhear insights on the steep cost
of port delays and how highcapacity equipment can reduce
them, infrastructure andmaintenance challenges in aging
facilities, the role of AGI'sengineering and technical sales
teams in designing smart,site-specific solutions, and how
(02:22):
ports can adapt to evolvingvessel sizes, environmental
regulations, and multi-commodityhandling.
All that and more coming upnext.
Music (02:35):
Music Bye.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (02:43):
Thank you for joining us, folks.
We have another great episodecoming here with Justin
Patterson of AGI.
Justin, welcome to the show,first of all.
Thank you for joining us on theWhole Grain Podcast.
Well, thanks for having me.
Nice speaking to you now fromjust outside your location in
Sao Paulo, Brazil.
You have an incrediblebackground.
You are the VP of GlobalEngineering at AGI, and you've
(03:04):
been doing that since 2018.
Today, we have a really bigtopic, something we haven't
talked about here in the show,so I know our podcast listeners
will be tuned to that.
Our theme is aboutmodernization.
modern challenges that grainport facilities face and how ag
equipment manufacturers such asAGI can assist.
Tell us a little bit about yourrole so far with AGI since
joining them in 2018.
Justin Paterson, AGI (03:25):
Yeah, well I started like I said in 2018.
Previous to that I worked for alarge grain handling company in
Canada managing theirconstruction facility operations
and AGI brought me on to dokind of the same thing for them.
Receive construction projects,look after the engineering
department, expand theengineering department in AGI.
And that's kind of moved arounda little bit over the last
(03:48):
number of years as careers do.
And since October of last year,I've been based in AGI's office
in Brazil because this is wherekind of we have a The biggest
projects that are going oninside of AGI are in the Brazil
market right now.
For listeners that aren'tfamiliar with the Brazil market,
it's really going through a bigtransformation.
A lot of redevelopment workgoing on in the port, a lot of
(04:10):
development work going on in thecountry infrastructure, because
a lot of the countryinfrastructure we take for
granted in North America doesn'teven exist here.
I oversee the engineering workthat we do down here and then
the projects that we'reexecuting specific to Brazil and
Latin America.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (04:24):
Well, that's exciting.
I know that need is great.
Over there and the number ofprojects going on at port
facilities is just enormous.
I was in Brazil a couple ofOctobers ago and learned a lot
about that.
Let's set the stage here, ifyou don't mind, for our
listeners.
Why grain port efficiency iscritically important in today's
(04:46):
global trade?
We know it is, but why is thatso?
Can you just state that?
Justin Paterson, AGI (04:50):
Yeah, I mean, every aspect of the supply
chain involved in portoperations, be it the rail side
infrastructure, the productcoming in, or in the case of
Brazil, a lot of it's on trucks.
And then also the marinetraffic headed out.
Everybody's got pressure toturn their assets.
They want the rail cars back inthe country.
They want the boats back on theocean.
Nobody has any time to waste inany of these operations.
(05:15):
So equipment has to befunctional.
Equipment has to be easy tomaintain, have strong uptime.
And the other issue that theyhave in a lot of port areas is
it's aging infrastructure,right?
So we need to work within whatwe have and the space that we
have available.
So when making equipmentupgrade choices, you have to
select something that's going totick all these boxes for you.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (05:38):
That's a great overview of why it's so
critical.
So the challenge is to becomeefficient.
Let's talk about the pressureon port operations in a little
more detail.
Some of the things I wanted totalk about, and actually the
first thing is about timepressures from shipping
scheduled and to merge costs.
Can you add some detail there?
Justin Paterson, AGI (05:59):
Yeah, certainly when you've got a boat
waiting for you in the port,they charge demerge costs in
Brazil, $30,000 to $40,000 aday.
In North America, certainly atthe height of the pandemic and
supply chain snarls, it wasapproaching $100,000 or more per
day to have a ship waiting foryou.
And if you have a bucketelevator down, that's real
(06:19):
money.
You have to hit your loadingwindows or potentially all of
your profitability on that movehas gone out the window.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (06:26):
Wow.
So financial penalties fordelays, their impact on
operators, it cannot be ignored.
And so that is top of mind.
And so we're ultimately gettinginto solutions that can support
people in port facilities tomove that grain as efficient as
possible.
So global examples, Brazil, youtalked about, add some more
(06:47):
detail to that.
And of course, the hugeVancouver port facility and any
other examples.
Can you cite some situationsthere and describe that more?
Justin Paterson, AGI (06:56):
Yeah, in Brazil, obviously close to mind
right now.
That's where I'm based out ofactually today.
We're doing commissioning onour first of two 2,500 ton per
hour bucket elevators in afacility in Santos here.
They're the largest elevators,I believe, in the agriculture
industry that have actually beenbuilt and sold.
And so this is a bigachievement for AGI, but also
(07:17):
fantastic for our customerbecause we're working within, as
I said earlier, built upinfrastructure.
There's no more space besidethe water in Brazil.
Certainly on the Northwestcoast of North America,
everything's built out.
You've got to work within whatyou have.
So our customer came to us witha real challenge where they
said, we've got this existingfootprint.
(07:38):
We want to double our shippingcapacity.
What can you help us with?
And AGI was able to come upwith this solution, working with
some of our key supplierpartners to put together
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (07:49):
this piece of equipment for them.
So I think you quoted theoperators are being charged
increasingly higher penaltiesfor delays in Brazil to merge.
I think you said it can cost$30,000 to $40,000 per day in
North America.
It could be even higher.
Sometimes you said even$100,000.
Now, that's per day.
That's amazing.
So similar pressures at railfacilities and operators they
(08:13):
face to turn their assets.
So that's a huge incentive toload faster.
So let's talk about AGIsolutions.
Equipment must support highcapacity.
That's one.
step is high capacity,continuous operation.
We also need to talk about highefficiency equipment and then
also high capacity bucketelevators and conveyors and how
(08:36):
they can assist in reducingdowntime and faster throughput.
Obviously, capacity is the nameof the game.
The faster you
Justin Paterson, AGI (08:42):
can get the material moving through the
facility and out to the dock,the faster you load the boat and
the faster it's on its way.
You can tell I'm a prairie boy.
I'm talking about boats and Ishould be referring to ships,
but...
The next biggest thing is theease of maintenance and just the
robustness of the equipment,right?
So the last thing you want isyour high capacity bucket
(09:03):
elevator to be offline for you.
So we really focus ondeveloping equipment that's
robust, that has high servicefactors on power transmission
components, shaft sizes,something that's not going to
leave you stranded.
But also the big focus, mybackground, actually working in
the operations side and nowworking on the equipment to
(09:24):
side, thinking about the guy whoactually has to work on these
things and has to change the oilin the gearboxes and grease the
bearings and things like that,so that when you do take these
maintenance windows, you can getthrough and deal with it
quickly and get the equipmentback online again.
It's a big focus for AGIengineering to make something
that's easy to look after.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (09:44):
I like that.
That's why you're the perfectguest and a great representative
of your organization, AGI,because you see both sides of
it.
You just put yourself in theline of the operations.
scheduling, maintenance is key.
And there's only so manywindows.
So there's a lot of recordkeeping, a lot of work to be
done.
So talking high capacity bucketelevators assist with this.
(10:06):
Let's talk about what is thecapacity?
I'm curious, what is capable,for example, in Brazil, in terms
of capacity in metric tons perhour?
Basically, the state of the artRight
Justin Paterson, AGI (10:18):
here in Brazil, we're installing right
now a set of conveying equipmentin Santos at 2,500 tons per
hour.
We will be doing one on aproject early next year where
we'll be going to 3,000 tons perhour, metric tons per hour.
That's for loading sugar.
So you can imagine how muchsugar that is coming off of that
belt conveyor.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (10:37):
That is incredible.
I can't even imagine that.
But you are able to do that,and those are projects that your
company is working on.
Yeah, absolutely.
Justin Paterson, AGI (10:46):
Our engineering team here in Brazil
is fantastic and kind of at theforefront, I think, in port
facility equipment design, thisgroup, because there's just so
much investment happening inthis segment in Brazil right
now.
Certainly the tariff situationhas wiped out a lot of soybean
exports coming out of the UnitedStates.
(11:08):
All of that business has movedto Brazil.
And just the size of the cropsthat they get here and the
volume they have to move throughthe existing infrastructure.
It's going up, up, and up.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (11:18):
We're talking about infrastructure and
maintenance challenges.
There's not just one.
There's not just two.
There's several key things thatare challenging.
For example, we're talkingabout aging infrastructure,
especially maybe in NorthAmerica, where equipment might
be 50 to 80 plus years old.
There's that challenge, aginginfrastructure.
You can describe that somemore, but what are All those
(11:43):
challenges that one may considerwhen you're talking about port
facilities and moving grain.
Yeah.
So
Justin Paterson, AGI (11:50):
my experience with working in port
facilities and especially agingones in North America, there's a
finite amount of space.
We've said before, thewaterfront's all built out.
There's not a spare lot nextdoor to go assemble something.
And by the same token, nobodywants to take any additional
extra downtime on anything.
So the name of the game inlooking after these port assets,
(12:12):
in my experience, has beentaking a really detailed look at
where actually is thebottleneck in the process flow.
So So taking the product rightfrom where it's coming out of
the bin to where it's going ontothe ship, where can that be
optimized?
And then working within thespace that's available, how can
you situate a really efficient,really robust piece of equipment
(12:32):
that's going to achieve theshipping objectives?
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (12:36):
So that's interesting when you say that.
This is what I think of.
There's a lot of listenersright now who might be in the
vendor and supplier side.
There might be students inindustry.
There's probably a lot ofpeople who are on the grain
operations side.
And they may not all, in fact,many may not be working at port
facilities.
So when they talk about beingefficient there and maybe
(12:58):
improving or working in andamongst aging equipment or
building a facility, It'saltogether different at a port
facility.
We're talking about a realestate issue.
There simply is not the roomand the demand, because this
is...
A lot of these countries likeBrazil and U.S.
and Canada are feeding andfueling the world.
And the amount and volume ofgrain that's going through there
(13:19):
is just phenomenal.
One probably can hardlyconceive.
And so the time to turn thisover and get this on the big
ship and out, the demand andpressures are unreal.
That's what I've heard ofpeople in this industry.
And so these are uniquechallenges from other operation
facilities, right?
At port facilities.
And so...
It's just you don't have thespace.
(13:40):
So AGI looks at what they haveand tries to partner and provide
solutions, custom designsolutions.
And it can vary, but there's somany more, it seems like.
seems like there's so many morechallenges and restrictions due
to the demand of time andavailability to do something in
there and just the real estate.
(14:02):
So limited maintenance windows,you mentioned that.
You didn't mention other thingsthat people are facing,
staffing shortages, right?
Isn't that also true in termsof increased operational hours?
Tell me what that's like.
I mean, port facilities,they're
Justin Paterson, AGI (14:17):
The uptime is the name of the game.
The more hours a day thatyou're operating, moving
product, the more money thatyou're making, essentially,
right?
So what goes with that, though,is oftentimes there are
staffing pressures, either fromjust a financial standpoint, we
don't want to have 30 peoplestanding around when we could
have 15, and other times it'sactual labour shortages where
(14:39):
they're not actually able to getpeople to fully staff the
facilities.
That goes back to moreefficient equipment, equipment
that doesn't require so muchmaintenance, equipment that's
much more reliable.
All of this feeds into staffinglevels.
And so it's another advantagethat having highly efficient
(14:59):
equipment in a port facility
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (15:00):
can give to you.
You kind of marry the two bigareas of engineering and also
grain operations.
You also bring in a uniqueperspective from a global scale.
So now I want to ask you aboutdisparities, differences in
different countries, perhaps, interms of global investments.
What are the global investmentdisparities?
(15:23):
Can you speak of that?
Justin Paterson, AGI (15:25):
Yeah.
In Brazil, over the last fewyears, essentially been...
demolishing and rebuilding ahuge amount of their port
infrastructure because a lot ofit was too far behind the times
to be salvageable.
Versus a lot of my experiencein North America is there's been
more, what I'm going to say,incremental upgrades over the
(15:46):
years that have kept olderassets closer to what the
industry standard would be.
And so that creates actually abit of a bigger engineering
challenge because you go backto, you don't want to completely
start with a new sheet ofpaper.
So you need to figure out, youknow, how can I fit this piece
of equipment in this space?
What are my structural capacityconstraints?
What are height constraints?
(16:06):
What are our building permitconstraints?
All of those sorts of thingscome into a lot more of the
equation in North America whenyou're working within existing
assets versus Brazil, wherethey've kind of just said, look,
this stuff is too far gone.
We should just knock it downand we'll start over again.
Not in all cases, but there'smore of that happening here.
In Brazil also, they're openingup more of the north corridor
(16:30):
of the country.
So there's river terminaldevelopment happening in the
northern part of the countryslowly, but that's actually
brand new port development.
So again, that's sort of adisparity between what you see
in North America versus what yousee internationally.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (16:44):
So one summary statement I'm gathering here is
they're trying to squeeze moreoperational days out of the same
infrastructure.
Is that true?
Yes, absolutely.
Now, AGI solutions are presentand real, and they're actively
being engaged every single day.
So I don't know if you couldadd some of those details to
(17:05):
provide some engineering supportfor the facilities.
Can you talk about how there'sintegration with these existing
structures some more, forexample, in Brazil?
Justin Paterson, AGI (17:15):
Yeah, I mean, I view everything that we
do in the port as basically abespoke solution, that these are
big, expensive pieces ofequipment for very bespoke
pieces of infrastructure.
No terminal is exactly the sameas any other terminal.
So when AGI is requested to getinvolved in projects in the
port, we spend a lot of time onsite with the customer.
(17:38):
We're doing measurements ofexisting equipment, existing
structures, oftentimes goingback through old paper drawings,
or in situations where nodrawings exist at all, we're out
with a tape measure trying tofigure out what actually do we
have to work with here.
This tower that we're going toerect an elevator inside of,
What's the capacity of the headservice platform?
(17:59):
Do we have access that's goingto meet the modern building
code?
All of those sorts of things.
So everything that AGI getsrequested to do in the port is a
really one-off.
And that's something that weactually do really quite well
at.
We've got a really big, verycapable engineering department,
lots of years of experiencedoing these types of facilities.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (18:18):
Can you talk about low maintenance equipment?
There are choices.
facilities can make whenworking with a vendor such as
AGI.
In terms of AGI, what are someof those options in terms of
low-maintenance equipment?
Justin Paterson, AGI (18:32):
A big one in the ports is, this is maybe
ancillary to maintenance on theequipment itself, but
maintenance on theinfrastructure.
And something a lot of peopledon't, doesn't necessarily come
to mind, but housekeeping.
When you're moving 2,500, 3,000tons per hour of anything on a
conveyor, you're going to makedust.
And so where does thataccumulated dust go?
(18:52):
So AGI has some reallyinnovative solutions in high
capacity, fully enclosed beltconveyors, for instance.
Probably listeners are familiarwith our high roller product
line and the Big Brother theHigh Life product line.
Those cut down on maintenanceand housekeeping costs
significantly because all of thedust that's generated through
the conveying process iscompletely enclosed inside the
(19:13):
conveyor body.
And they're self-cleaning andself-reloading.
And that really has becomeactually the industry standard
down here in Brazil.
And it's very common to seethis product line also in North
America.
And the number of people arenow emulating our product line,
to put it charitably.
But this is something that kindof sets the standard for for
controlling housekeeping costs.
(19:33):
And one of the things that I'vefound, I've done a lot of work
in the port of Vancouver, beinga good neighbor is really
important.
And so there's a lot of builtup residential infrastructure,
especially in Vancouver, Canada,around some of these port
facilities.
And there's some severelimitations on dust emissions
that are permitted.
And even if you're within thepermitted amount, people don't
(19:54):
like having beeswings and wheatdust and crap on their cars when
they get out of their house inthe morning.
So anything you can do to be abetter neighbor is going to be
to your benefit as a facilityoperator.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (20:06):
Very good point.
Thanks for sharing that.
That's a really good, importantperspective.
The other thing I wanted totouch on is you mentioned high
roller.
A lot of people in the industryare listening to know about
that.
Can you add some detail to thatjust to keep people informed
and more information about itproduct line?
Justin Paterson, AGI (20:23):
Yeah, the product line has been around
since I've been involved in theindustry and well before I came
to AGI.
It's a totally enclosed beltconveyor.
So it has a bottom on it, allthe material related to the
conveying processes containedinside of it.
And it lends itself reallyeffectively to doing dust
mitigation strategies.
(20:43):
So with a more conventionalopen belt conveyor that you
still see a lot of in the port,there's not really a good way to
take aspiration off of it topull air off of the top of the
conveyor to actually control andsegment some of this dust
somewhere else.
So that's a total reasonablepossibility with a high roller
or high life enclosed belt ispulling dust off the equipment.
(21:04):
That can be beneficial becauseother parts of the conveying
process in the port facilitydon't lend themselves to
removing dust.
So you hear people talk aboutdustless spouts.
in the process where theproduct's actually coming off
the end of the conveyor and intothe ship, that creates a lot of
(21:25):
dust also.
So if you can mitigate some ofthe dust before the product
actually gets to the transferpoint, you're going to have less
fugitive dust emissions comingout of the
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (21:34):
ship's hold to deal with later.
Very nice.
So we're talking here in thesake about infrastructure and
maintenance challenges.
So you brought some really goodperspective and points here.
But I think another thing iswhen grain facilities are
reaching out and looking forsolutions, they want experts,
expert technical sales team.
So Here's an opportunity totalk about your organization's
(21:57):
technical sales team.
We have a fantastic
Justin Paterson, AGI (21:59):
technical sales team here at AGI.
In North America, we have a lotof people who have significant
industry experience coming fromall of the major industry
players.
And the same is in Brazil andfrankly, around the other
regions in the world we operate,which is everywhere.
We are international.
So the technical sales group,our team, we focus on recruiting
(22:23):
and bringing on people thathave this actual real
operational experience and cantalk to our customers from a
practical standpoint and bridgethe gap with the engineering
folks.
And then in engineering, wealso have a number of people
like myself who have some realpractical hands-on operational
experience that can also talktechnically about how do we
(22:44):
design the equipment?
What do we need for thesolution here?
What's going to bring us intocompliance with the regulations,
but not blow up the costeither.
Like what is a a practical,pragmatic solution.
And AGI Technical Sales canabsolutely offer that to our
customers.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (23:00):
So technical sales team members, they bridge
that gap between sales andexecution, ensure that the
equipment is quoted accurately,specifications are correct, like
you touched on, and solutions,like you also touched on, are
tailored or customized to theapplication.
So talk a little bit more aboutwhat their support also
(23:21):
includes
Justin Paterson, AGI (23:22):
product from AGI.
When we get involved in a majorcapital project like this, we
are on site from firstconception working with not only
the capital projects team, butactually the operations team who
really know the facility.
We want to understand from theboots on the ground standpoint,
what are the challenges withyour particular facility?
(23:42):
Not what does headquartersthink you need, but that's part
of it.
And headquarters is going toproduce a specification, but we
also want to understand from thestandpoint of the people using
the equipment and actually ininhabiting the facility, which
direction does the windpredominantly blow from?
What challenges do you haveworking with the ship on the
dock side?
Things like that, that weintegrate into what we put
(24:03):
together for our projectproposal.
And then we're with thecustomer through well-passed
commissioning.
So some of our projects inBrazil, as part of our service,
we attach someone fromengineering to the facility for
the full commissioning.
year after the facility startsup to make sure that everything
is functioning correctly, theequipment break-in is going
well, and performance is asexpected.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (24:25):
Now, let's segment over to space traffic
and lease pressures.
This, again, can be reallyspecific to port facilities, not
always, but certainly havetheir own challenges and then
solutions to follow.
So, let's first talk aboutcontainer traffic preference
over bulk grain.
Justin Paterson, AGI (24:45):
This you see a lot on the west coast of
North America.
Container traffic, it comes andgoes a little bit in terms of
the preference of portauthorities, but typically has
been pressure to move bulkoperations out of, let's say,
downtown Vancouver.
And there is a preference tocontainer traffic because it's
cleaner, it's quieter, it'sperceived as more efficient.
(25:06):
And so this just adds to someof the pressure on bulk facility
operators to be more efficientwith ever-decreasing footprint
they have available for them tooperate
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (25:17):
in.
And don't forget about leaserenewals, space constraints.
There's a lot going on.
Justin Paterson, AGI (25:23):
There's a lot going on there, especially
in, again, going back to myVancouver experience, most of
the facilities, they're not onowned land.
So the land is leased from thefederal government for a certain
number.
That's how long you have tooperate and to achieve the
return on your investment inthat space and then you
basically you return the landand whatever you built on it
(25:46):
back to the government.
Oh wow.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (25:47):
Urban encroachment and increasing
scrutiny over dust, noise...
emissions you said be a goodneighbor that means a lot you've
touched on that anything elseyou want to add about the
increasing scrutiny over dustnoise and emissions yeah uh
Justin Paterson, AGI (26:04):
you know environmental topics uh are the
name of the game now and notjust related to fugitive dust
emissions most facilities andbuilt up areas have noise
specifications none of theneighbors of these facilities
want to listen to a gearboxhowling to them in the middle of
the night so all of this isfactors into sort of
(26:24):
increasingly technical solutionsthat are required from
equipment providers.
Noise is a byproduct of theamount of power that you're
putting into a piece ofequipment.
So when we go to build a 2,500ton per hour bucket elevator,
everything has to be scrutinizedfor noise emissions because we
have to stay within potentiallya certain specification.
So these are all things thathave to be thought about when
(26:45):
you're looking at putting awhole lot more horsepower
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (26:49):
in the same footprint.
There's so much to think about.
Now, in terms of AGI solutions,large capacity equipment for
space.
So we have constrained ports.
That's a challenge.
How does AGI support that?
Dust control systems areimportant.
Can you highlight those thingsand any other examples you have
(27:09):
of influencing local regulationsrelated to the port or the
region or the country?
Well, unfortunately we don'thave any
Justin Paterson, AGI (27:17):
influence over local regulations.
We kind of just have to followthem.
But yes, it goes back to,again, the dust being the
biggest one that we have controlover.
And AGI does offer like a fullsuite of dust control solutions
that are appropriate for portinfrastructure.
Whether it's spot filtration orcentral baghouse filtration,
AGI does have a complete productline to handle that.
(27:40):
And as well, engineering groupto support actually configuring
a solution to a particularapplication.
And beyond that, the noise iscertainly part of it.
And a little bit, to a certainextent, the aesthetics.
I've actually been on projectsin Vancouver where the color
that the motor was painted waspart of the building permit
because they didn't want it tolook out of place in the
(28:00):
skyline.
That's potentially a uniqueCanadian issue, but we deal with
all of it.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (28:07):
Yeah.
Wow.
Lots to consider.
AGI helped change regulationsin Brazil by introducing
enclosed belt conveyors.
the industry standard.
AGI brought
Justin Paterson, AGI (28:18):
this product to Brazil.
And so just the background onit, I guess.
Previously, everything in theBrazil port was on open belts.
You have a lot of fugitive dustemissions.
The other problem they have inport operations is it rains a
lot next to the ocean.
And so you have, this shouldn'tbe new to you, but the enclosed
(28:39):
belt is weathertight.
So you have increased loading aship in the rain is still a
problem because you're conveyingproduct off the end of the
conveyor.
But doing transfers within thefacility, you don't have as much
issue with rainwatercontamination of the product
that's being transferred withinthe plant when you're using an
enclosed belt.
But Brazil, the biggest was thefugitive dust emissions.
(29:01):
And now that's the regulation.
Open belts are not permittedhere anymore.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (29:06):
Bring up some really, yeah, very interesting
points.
Let's talk about flexibilityand future-proofing.
Some of the topics forconsideration include equipment
that supports multiplecommodities, obviously running
multiple commodities, so itmakes sense, and
cross-contamination prevention.
For example, self-cleaningspouts, adapting to large
(29:29):
vessels.
And this is post Panama ships,for example, climate related
challenges.
There's a lot to consider.
Can you describe those a littlemore detail?
And then what are AGI solutionsfor each of those?
Justin Paterson, AGI (29:42):
Yeah, what this question and this topic
drives out a little bit is like,we don't know what things are
going to be like in 10 or 15years from now.
Port facilities, major, majorcapital investments.
And so when...
The choices made to make amajor upgrade to a facility,
they want as much flexibility aspossible built into it.
(30:03):
If you talk to me 10, 12 yearsago when I was strictly working
in North America and said, hey,you know, Justin, in 10 or 12
years, you're going to beinstalling a 2,500 ton per hour
conveyor specifically for sugar.
I would have said, wow, that'sridiculous, but that is what
we're working on right now.
And so also the shifting tradepatterns.
(30:24):
So depending on theagricultural economic situation
in the world, export trends comeand go.
So places where you seepreviously, you said a lot of
soybean exports from the US isdrying up quite a bit right now.
And Canada used to be a lot ofcanola meal exports.
That's kind of dried up alittle bit right now.
(30:45):
Those assets, they're stilltrying to work them.
So it's a shift in othercommodities.
So something that may have beendesigned or conceived for one
trade pattern to support onetrade pattern, you need to have
some flexibility to be able tosupport what you don't foresee
coming and so you know agi inbrazil for instance our high
(31:06):
roller is really well suited forconveying sugar which is
something that you know wedesigned into it when we made
the brazil product not knowingto what extent it was really
going to take off for the sugarmarket here in brazil also
supports soybeans does wheatdoes corn so having that sort of
flexibility in your equipmentis is critical to running a
(31:26):
successful port operationbecause you don't know what's
going to come at you can be assimple as somebody making a
tweet that changes globaleconomic agricultural trade
patterns
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (31:36):
So these are incredible, as you said, capital
investments.
There's some risk involved.
Want to reduce the risk, makegood decisions.
Some of those decisions supportmultiple commodities, being
flexible, as you said.
Before we go here, I want totouch on global trade shifts and
strategic positioning.
Oh, goodness.
(31:56):
There's so much to talk abouthere.
I don't even know where tostart.
But there are, in fact,shifting trade routes, right?
Absolutely.
We'll just start there.
Justin Paterson, AGI (32:05):
Yeah, as we've seen, without getting into
the politics behind it, withsort of the global trade
disruption that's happened sincethe beginning of the year, and
then retaliatory measures takenby other countries, it's really
screwed up, to a certain extent,established agricultural trade
networks.
The example I keep pointing tois soybean exports from the US,
(32:29):
or previous to that, canolaexports from Canada have been
severely impacted by things thataren't strictly agricultural
related.
It's not like there was a cropfailure.
It's that there's been somechange in the geopolitical
environment that's caused cropmovements to become
uneconomical.
(32:49):
And so that plays into, like Isaid previously, having
flexibility in your equipment tobe able to work with different
products depending on what'savailable and what's most
economical to ship.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (33:03):
Yes, geopolitical climate is dynamic
and it's ever-changing.
And so obviously we've got alot to think about here and
shifting trade routes.
Let's talk about importance ofoperational flexibility and
speed.
Justin Paterson, AG (33:15):
Absolutely.
When you have either railwayassets that come in, that you
have to unload your train carsand get the equipment back out
in the country, or in thesituation where there's a ship
at birth and that needs to beloaded and turned, the faster
the equipment can run, thefaster the commodity can be
conveyed, the faster that you'regoing to put those things back
to work, making money and notsitting there waiting for you.
(33:38):
So the everywhere in the portthat the focus is on how quickly
can you move product from pointA to point B.
That's just what it's aboutnow.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (33:48):
So AGI solutions are there to support
you, other players or industryare there, but it's always
evaluating constantly in termsof these global trade shifts and
how that's impacting strategicpositioning.
So Global Player, how can weuse a system or product that has
been successful in one regionand localize it for another?
Justin Paterson, AGI (34:11):
We're doing a lot of that.
Brazil is a success story, forinstance.
So we've taken a lot of AGI'sestablished North American
product.
And again, going back to thegeopolitical situation, Brazil's
tough to import stuff into.
So we needed to figure out howto build it in Brazil with
Brazilian specification ofsteel, Brazil is a partially
(34:32):
metric country.
So bearing sizes, shaft sizes,fasteners are all different than
what we have in North America.
So AGI does a lot ofregionalization of its products
to serve better the Brazilmarket.
We took an established productfrom North America and
configured it so that we caneffectively manufacture it in
Brazil with spare parts that areavailable in Brazil.
(34:53):
And also, relative to what aresome of the peculiarities of the
Brazil market, we don't exporta lot of sugar from the United
States, for instance, or Canada.
Brazil exports a huge amount ofsugar.
So it requires a slightlydifferent configuration of
bucket elevator conveyor to dothat.
And we take an establishedproduct design conception and
(35:18):
customize it for the realspecific needs of the region and
the customer.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (35:22):
Great thought process there.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate all the supportyou're delivering to our whole
grain podcast listeners.
Justin, we're talking aboutpoor pressures today.
They are real.
They're very different fromother grain facilities.
We're talking about navigatinggrain facility challenges with
(35:42):
smart equipment solutions.
AGI is a solution provider,certainly in this area and
others.
What are some of your closingsentiments or statements or
recap some of those highlights?
Justin Paterson, AGI (35:55):
Yeah, I mean, AGI, as you said, is a
creative solution provider.
We like to understand what itis that our customers require
and really what are theiroperational pressures and
challenges and drive down onwhat problem we're really trying
to solve for them and then comeup with a solution that's going
to be effective, be robust,meet or exceed their
(36:15):
expectations, and then supportthe heck out of it.
That's what AGI's business is.
And that's what my position istoo.
As part of the AGI team, tosupport our major commercial
customers in this way.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (36:30):
Justin, thank you.
Thank you, AGI, for supportingand advancing the grain handling
and grain processing industry.
Your insights are veryinformative and very timely and
very relevant.
We will include any and all keylinks and things you want to
include in our show notes foraction items for Whole Grain
Podcast listeners.
Make sure you go tothejeeps.com forward slash Whole
(36:51):
Grain Podcast, the websitethere.
There'll be actually a link fora page dedicated just to, you
got to see Justin.
You got to get his headshotthere and especially Special
graphic there will have a link,of course, for this player.
Some of you are listening fromthere.
The show notes will be there.
The transcript of the show isthere.
And of course, this show isfound on just about every
podcast directory out there.
Share this with your colleaguesand your network.
(37:13):
This is an important one.
It's such a dynamic environmentand EGI's organizations are
here to support.
you and solutions and it's goodto have conversations.
So we will leave importantlinks in the show notes so that
people can get that again fromany of your podcast apps.
You'll see the show notes inthe description.
You'll also see that on ourwebsite.
For people to find out moreinformation about your
(37:36):
organization, Justin, what isthe best way to connect and
learn more?
I would head over
Justin Paterson, AGI (37:41):
to aggrowth.com and see our product
catalog and some of ourhighlight projects and various
other links from there.
We're also on other socialmedia platforms, LinkedIn,
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (37:52):
Facebook, places like that.
Wonderful.
Thank you, Justin, very much.
Thank you, AGI, for sponsoringtoday's episode.
It was a wonderful treat tohave you on the Whole Grain
Podcast.
Appreciate it.
Thanks.
That wraps up today's episodeof the Jeep's Whole Grain
Podcast.
A big thank you to JustinPatterson for sharing his global
expertise on how grain portfacilities can overcome the
(38:15):
mounting pressures of moderntrade.
This episode was made possiblethrough a generous support of
AGI, Aged Growth International.
Whether you're managingthroughput challenges,
navigating aging infrastructure,or seeking equipment that can
adapt to evolving regulations,AGI's team is ready to help with
customized engineering and highefficiency solutions.
(38:35):
If you found this episodeinsightful, I encourage you to
continue the conversation.
Here are a few reflectionquestions to discuss with your
team.
What are the greatest sourcesof pressure or inefficiency in
your port or terminal today?
Where might a Equipmentupgrades make the biggest impact
on performance or uptime.
And how are you preparing yourfacility for future capacity,
(38:58):
regulatory, or environmentaldemands?
How are you preparing yourfacility for future capacity,
regulatory, or environmentaldemands?
To learn more about AGI'sproducts and services, visit
aggrowth.com.
That's A-G-R-O-W-T-H dot com.
And for additional resources,education, and networking
(39:18):
opportunities, head overto GEAPS, that's g-e-a-p-s dot
com thanks for listening to thewhole grain podcast be sure to
subscribe so you never miss anepisode until next time stay
safe stay engaged and keepmoving grain forward
Grain ports around the world under intense
pressure from rising demurragecosts to tighter space and aging
infrastructure.
In today's episode, we explorehow smarter equipment and
engineering can turn thesechallenges into opportunities.
Let's get started.
(00:24):
Hello and welcome to the show.
Welcome to the Whole GrainPodcast.
which feeds and fuels theworld.
(00:56):
This episode is proudlysponsored by AGI, Ag Growth
International, a global leaderin delivering equipment and
engineering solutions that helpgrain facilities operate safely,
efficiently, and at scale.
Today, we're turning our focusto a topic that affects
operations in the global stage,the growing pressures facing
grain port facilities.
(01:17):
As the world becomes moreinterconnected, port terminals
are facing tighter turnaroundtimes, stricter environmental
and increasing financialpenalties when delays occur.
And with limited space andaging infrastructure, the
challenges become even greater.
To help us navigate thesecomplex issues, I'm joined by
(01:38):
Justin Patterson, Vice Presidentof Global Engineering at AGI.
Justin brings more than 20years of experience in the grain
industry, including engineeringand construction leadership for
both country and portoperations in North America and
South America.
With degrees in civilengineering, Thank you.
(02:00):
In today's conversation, you'llhear insights on the steep cost
of port delays and how highcapacity equipment can reduce
them, infrastructure andmaintenance challenges in aging
facilities, the role of AGI'sengineering and technical sales
teams in designing smart,site-specific solutions, and how
(02:22):
ports can adapt to evolvingvessel sizes, environmental
regulations, and multi-commodityhandling.
All that and more coming upnext.
Music (02:35):
Music Bye.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (02:43):
Thank you for joining us, folks.
We have another great episodecoming here with Justin
Patterson of AGI.
Justin, welcome to the show,first of all.
Thank you for joining us on theWhole Grain Podcast.
Well, thanks for having me.
Nice speaking to you now fromjust outside your location in
Sao Paulo, Brazil.
You have an incrediblebackground.
You are the VP of GlobalEngineering at AGI, and you've
(03:04):
been doing that since 2018.
Today, we have a really bigtopic, something we haven't
talked about here in the show,so I know our podcast listeners
will be tuned to that.
Our theme is aboutmodernization.
modern challenges that grainport facilities face and how ag
equipment manufacturers such asAGI can assist.
Tell us a little bit about yourrole so far with AGI since
joining them in 2018.
Justin Paterson, AGI (03:25):
Yeah, well I started like I said in 2018.
Previous to that I worked for alarge grain handling company in
Canada managing theirconstruction facility operations
and AGI brought me on to dokind of the same thing for them.
Receive construction projects,look after the engineering
department, expand theengineering department in AGI.
And that's kind of moved arounda little bit over the last
(03:48):
number of years as careers do.
And since October of last year,I've been based in AGI's office
in Brazil because this is wherekind of we have a The biggest
projects that are going oninside of AGI are in the Brazil
market right now.
For listeners that aren'tfamiliar with the Brazil market,
it's really going through a bigtransformation.
A lot of redevelopment workgoing on in the port, a lot of
(04:10):
development work going on in thecountry infrastructure, because
a lot of the countryinfrastructure we take for
granted in North America doesn'teven exist here.
I oversee the engineering workthat we do down here and then
the projects that we'reexecuting specific to Brazil and
Latin America.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (04:24):
Well, that's exciting.
I know that need is great.
Over there and the number ofprojects going on at port
facilities is just enormous.
I was in Brazil a couple ofOctobers ago and learned a lot
about that.
Let's set the stage here, ifyou don't mind, for our
listeners.
Why grain port efficiency iscritically important in today's
(04:46):
global trade?
We know it is, but why is thatso?
Can you just state that?
Justin Paterson, AGI (04:50):
Yeah, I mean, every aspect of the supply
chain involved in portoperations, be it the rail side
infrastructure, the productcoming in, or in the case of
Brazil, a lot of it's on trucks.
And then also the marinetraffic headed out.
Everybody's got pressure toturn their assets.
They want the rail cars back inthe country.
They want the boats back on theocean.
Nobody has any time to waste inany of these operations.
(05:15):
So equipment has to befunctional.
Equipment has to be easy tomaintain, have strong uptime.
And the other issue that theyhave in a lot of port areas is
it's aging infrastructure,right?
So we need to work within whatwe have and the space that we
have available.
So when making equipmentupgrade choices, you have to
select something that's going totick all these boxes for you.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (05:38):
That's a great overview of why it's so
critical.
So the challenge is to becomeefficient.
Let's talk about the pressureon port operations in a little
more detail.
Some of the things I wanted totalk about, and actually the
first thing is about timepressures from shipping
scheduled and to merge costs.
Can you add some detail there?
Justin Paterson, AGI (05:59):
Yeah, certainly when you've got a boat
waiting for you in the port,they charge demerge costs in
Brazil, $30,000 to $40,000 aday.
In North America, certainly atthe height of the pandemic and
supply chain snarls, it wasapproaching $100,000 or more per
day to have a ship waiting foryou.
And if you have a bucketelevator down, that's real
(06:19):
money.
You have to hit your loadingwindows or potentially all of
your profitability on that movehas gone out the window.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (06:26):
Wow.
So financial penalties fordelays, their impact on
operators, it cannot be ignored.
And so that is top of mind.
And so we're ultimately gettinginto solutions that can support
people in port facilities tomove that grain as efficient as
possible.
So global examples, Brazil, youtalked about, add some more
(06:47):
detail to that.
And of course, the hugeVancouver port facility and any
other examples.
Can you cite some situationsthere and describe that more?
Justin Paterson, AGI (06:56):
Yeah, in Brazil, obviously close to mind
right now.
That's where I'm based out ofactually today.
We're doing commissioning onour first of two 2,500 ton per
hour bucket elevators in afacility in Santos here.
They're the largest elevators,I believe, in the agriculture
industry that have actually beenbuilt and sold.
And so this is a bigachievement for AGI, but also
(07:17):
fantastic for our customerbecause we're working within, as
I said earlier, built upinfrastructure.
There's no more space besidethe water in Brazil.
Certainly on the Northwestcoast of North America,
everything's built out.
You've got to work within whatyou have.
So our customer came to us witha real challenge where they
said, we've got this existingfootprint.
(07:38):
We want to double our shippingcapacity.
What can you help us with?
And AGI was able to come upwith this solution, working with
some of our key supplierpartners to put together
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (07:49):
this piece of equipment for them.
So I think you quoted theoperators are being charged
increasingly higher penaltiesfor delays in Brazil to merge.
I think you said it can cost$30,000 to $40,000 per day in
North America.
It could be even higher.
Sometimes you said even$100,000.
Now, that's per day.
That's amazing.
So similar pressures at railfacilities and operators they
(08:13):
face to turn their assets.
So that's a huge incentive toload faster.
So let's talk about AGIsolutions.
Equipment must support highcapacity.
That's one.
step is high capacity,continuous operation.
We also need to talk about highefficiency equipment and then
also high capacity bucketelevators and conveyors and how
(08:36):
they can assist in reducingdowntime and faster throughput.
Obviously, capacity is the nameof the game.
The faster you
Justin Paterson, AGI (08:42):
can get the material moving through the
facility and out to the dock,the faster you load the boat and
the faster it's on its way.
You can tell I'm a prairie boy.
I'm talking about boats and Ishould be referring to ships,
but...
The next biggest thing is theease of maintenance and just the
robustness of the equipment,right?
So the last thing you want isyour high capacity bucket
(09:03):
elevator to be offline for you.
So we really focus ondeveloping equipment that's
robust, that has high servicefactors on power transmission
components, shaft sizes,something that's not going to
leave you stranded.
But also the big focus, mybackground, actually working in
the operations side and nowworking on the equipment to
(09:24):
side, thinking about the guy whoactually has to work on these
things and has to change the oilin the gearboxes and grease the
bearings and things like that,so that when you do take these
maintenance windows, you can getthrough and deal with it
quickly and get the equipmentback online again.
It's a big focus for AGIengineering to make something
that's easy to look after.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (09:44):
I like that.
That's why you're the perfectguest and a great representative
of your organization, AGI,because you see both sides of
it.
You just put yourself in theline of the operations.
scheduling, maintenance is key.
And there's only so manywindows.
So there's a lot of recordkeeping, a lot of work to be
done.
So talking high capacity bucketelevators assist with this.
(10:06):
Let's talk about what is thecapacity?
I'm curious, what is capable,for example, in Brazil, in terms
of capacity in metric tons perhour?
Basically, the state of the artRight
Justin Paterson, AGI (10:18):
here in Brazil, we're installing right
now a set of conveying equipmentin Santos at 2,500 tons per
hour.
We will be doing one on aproject early next year where
we'll be going to 3,000 tons perhour, metric tons per hour.
That's for loading sugar.
So you can imagine how muchsugar that is coming off of that
belt conveyor.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (10:37):
That is incredible.
I can't even imagine that.
But you are able to do that,and those are projects that your
company is working on.
Yeah, absolutely.
Justin Paterson, AGI (10:46):
Our engineering team here in Brazil
is fantastic and kind of at theforefront, I think, in port
facility equipment design, thisgroup, because there's just so
much investment happening inthis segment in Brazil right
now.
Certainly the tariff situationhas wiped out a lot of soybean
exports coming out of the UnitedStates.
(11:08):
All of that business has movedto Brazil.
And just the size of the cropsthat they get here and the
volume they have to move throughthe existing infrastructure.
It's going up, up, and up.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (11:18):
We're talking about infrastructure and
maintenance challenges.
There's not just one.
There's not just two.
There's several key things thatare challenging.
For example, we're talkingabout aging infrastructure,
especially maybe in NorthAmerica, where equipment might
be 50 to 80 plus years old.
There's that challenge, aginginfrastructure.
You can describe that somemore, but what are All those
(11:43):
challenges that one may considerwhen you're talking about port
facilities and moving grain.
Yeah.
So
Justin Paterson, AGI (11:50):
my experience with working in port
facilities and especially agingones in North America, there's a
finite amount of space.
We've said before, thewaterfront's all built out.
There's not a spare lot nextdoor to go assemble something.
And by the same token, nobodywants to take any additional
extra downtime on anything.
So the name of the game inlooking after these port assets,
(12:12):
in my experience, has beentaking a really detailed look at
where actually is thebottleneck in the process flow.
So So taking the product rightfrom where it's coming out of
the bin to where it's going ontothe ship, where can that be
optimized?
And then working within thespace that's available, how can
you situate a really efficient,really robust piece of equipment
(12:32):
that's going to achieve theshipping objectives?
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (12:36):
So that's interesting when you say that.
This is what I think of.
There's a lot of listenersright now who might be in the
vendor and supplier side.
There might be students inindustry.
There's probably a lot ofpeople who are on the grain
operations side.
And they may not all, in fact,many may not be working at port
facilities.
So when they talk about beingefficient there and maybe
(12:58):
improving or working in andamongst aging equipment or
building a facility, It'saltogether different at a port
facility.
We're talking about a realestate issue.
There simply is not the roomand the demand, because this
is...
A lot of these countries likeBrazil and U.S.
and Canada are feeding andfueling the world.
And the amount and volume ofgrain that's going through there
(13:19):
is just phenomenal.
One probably can hardlyconceive.
And so the time to turn thisover and get this on the big
ship and out, the demand andpressures are unreal.
That's what I've heard ofpeople in this industry.
And so these are uniquechallenges from other operation
facilities, right?
At port facilities.
And so...
It's just you don't have thespace.
(13:40):
So AGI looks at what they haveand tries to partner and provide
solutions, custom designsolutions.
And it can vary, but there's somany more, it seems like.
seems like there's so many morechallenges and restrictions due
to the demand of time andavailability to do something in
there and just the real estate.
(14:02):
So limited maintenance windows,you mentioned that.
You didn't mention other thingsthat people are facing,
staffing shortages, right?
Isn't that also true in termsof increased operational hours?
Tell me what that's like.
I mean, port facilities,they're
Justin Paterson, AGI (14:17):
The uptime is the name of the game.
The more hours a day thatyou're operating, moving
product, the more money thatyou're making, essentially,
right?
So what goes with that, though,is oftentimes there are
staffing pressures, either fromjust a financial standpoint, we
don't want to have 30 peoplestanding around when we could
have 15, and other times it'sactual labour shortages where
(14:39):
they're not actually able to getpeople to fully staff the
facilities.
That goes back to moreefficient equipment, equipment
that doesn't require so muchmaintenance, equipment that's
much more reliable.
All of this feeds into staffinglevels.
And so it's another advantagethat having highly efficient
(14:59):
equipment in a port facility
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (15:00):
can give to you.
You kind of marry the two bigareas of engineering and also
grain operations.
You also bring in a uniqueperspective from a global scale.
So now I want to ask you aboutdisparities, differences in
different countries, perhaps, interms of global investments.
What are the global investmentdisparities?
(15:23):
Can you speak of that?
Justin Paterson, AGI (15:25):
Yeah.
In Brazil, over the last fewyears, essentially been...
demolishing and rebuilding ahuge amount of their port
infrastructure because a lot ofit was too far behind the times
to be salvageable.
Versus a lot of my experiencein North America is there's been
more, what I'm going to say,incremental upgrades over the
(15:46):
years that have kept olderassets closer to what the
industry standard would be.
And so that creates actually abit of a bigger engineering
challenge because you go backto, you don't want to completely
start with a new sheet ofpaper.
So you need to figure out, youknow, how can I fit this piece
of equipment in this space?
What are my structural capacityconstraints?
What are height constraints?
(16:06):
What are our building permitconstraints?
All of those sorts of thingscome into a lot more of the
equation in North America whenyou're working within existing
assets versus Brazil, wherethey've kind of just said, look,
this stuff is too far gone.
We should just knock it downand we'll start over again.
Not in all cases, but there'smore of that happening here.
In Brazil also, they're openingup more of the north corridor
(16:30):
of the country.
So there's river terminaldevelopment happening in the
northern part of the countryslowly, but that's actually
brand new port development.
So again, that's sort of adisparity between what you see
in North America versus what yousee internationally.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (16:44):
So one summary statement I'm gathering here is
they're trying to squeeze moreoperational days out of the same
infrastructure.
Is that true?
Yes, absolutely.
Now, AGI solutions are presentand real, and they're actively
being engaged every single day.
So I don't know if you couldadd some of those details to
(17:05):
provide some engineering supportfor the facilities.
Can you talk about how there'sintegration with these existing
structures some more, forexample, in Brazil?
Justin Paterson, AGI (17:15):
Yeah, I mean, I view everything that we
do in the port as basically abespoke solution, that these are
big, expensive pieces ofequipment for very bespoke
pieces of infrastructure.
No terminal is exactly the sameas any other terminal.
So when AGI is requested to getinvolved in projects in the
port, we spend a lot of time onsite with the customer.
(17:38):
We're doing measurements ofexisting equipment, existing
structures, oftentimes goingback through old paper drawings,
or in situations where nodrawings exist at all, we're out
with a tape measure trying tofigure out what actually do we
have to work with here.
This tower that we're going toerect an elevator inside of,
What's the capacity of the headservice platform?
(17:59):
Do we have access that's goingto meet the modern building
code?
All of those sorts of things.
So everything that AGI getsrequested to do in the port is a
really one-off.
And that's something that weactually do really quite well
at.
We've got a really big, verycapable engineering department,
lots of years of experiencedoing these types of facilities.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (18:18):
Can you talk about low maintenance equipment?
There are choices.
facilities can make whenworking with a vendor such as
AGI.
In terms of AGI, what are someof those options in terms of
low-maintenance equipment?
Justin Paterson, AGI (18:32):
A big one in the ports is, this is maybe
ancillary to maintenance on theequipment itself, but
maintenance on theinfrastructure.
And something a lot of peopledon't, doesn't necessarily come
to mind, but housekeeping.
When you're moving 2,500, 3,000tons per hour of anything on a
conveyor, you're going to makedust.
And so where does thataccumulated dust go?
(18:52):
So AGI has some reallyinnovative solutions in high
capacity, fully enclosed beltconveyors, for instance.
Probably listeners are familiarwith our high roller product
line and the Big Brother theHigh Life product line.
Those cut down on maintenanceand housekeeping costs
significantly because all of thedust that's generated through
the conveying process iscompletely enclosed inside the
(19:13):
conveyor body.
And they're self-cleaning andself-reloading.
And that really has becomeactually the industry standard
down here in Brazil.
And it's very common to seethis product line also in North
America.
And the number of people arenow emulating our product line,
to put it charitably.
But this is something that kindof sets the standard for for
controlling housekeeping costs.
(19:33):
And one of the things that I'vefound, I've done a lot of work
in the port of Vancouver, beinga good neighbor is really
important.
And so there's a lot of builtup residential infrastructure,
especially in Vancouver, Canada,around some of these port
facilities.
And there's some severelimitations on dust emissions
that are permitted.
And even if you're within thepermitted amount, people don't
(19:54):
like having beeswings and wheatdust and crap on their cars when
they get out of their house inthe morning.
So anything you can do to be abetter neighbor is going to be
to your benefit as a facilityoperator.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (20:06):
Very good point.
Thanks for sharing that.
That's a really good, importantperspective.
The other thing I wanted totouch on is you mentioned high
roller.
A lot of people in the industryare listening to know about
that.
Can you add some detail to thatjust to keep people informed
and more information about itproduct line?
Justin Paterson, AGI (20:23):
Yeah, the product line has been around
since I've been involved in theindustry and well before I came
to AGI.
It's a totally enclosed beltconveyor.
So it has a bottom on it, allthe material related to the
conveying processes containedinside of it.
And it lends itself reallyeffectively to doing dust
mitigation strategies.
(20:43):
So with a more conventionalopen belt conveyor that you
still see a lot of in the port,there's not really a good way to
take aspiration off of it topull air off of the top of the
conveyor to actually control andsegment some of this dust
somewhere else.
So that's a total reasonablepossibility with a high roller
or high life enclosed belt ispulling dust off the equipment.
(21:04):
That can be beneficial becauseother parts of the conveying
process in the port facilitydon't lend themselves to
removing dust.
So you hear people talk aboutdustless spouts.
in the process where theproduct's actually coming off
the end of the conveyor and intothe ship, that creates a lot of
(21:25):
dust also.
So if you can mitigate some ofthe dust before the product
actually gets to the transferpoint, you're going to have less
fugitive dust emissions comingout of the
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (21:34):
ship's hold to deal with later.
Very nice.
So we're talking here in thesake about infrastructure and
maintenance challenges.
So you brought some really goodperspective and points here.
But I think another thing iswhen grain facilities are
reaching out and looking forsolutions, they want experts,
expert technical sales team.
So Here's an opportunity totalk about your organization's
(21:57):
technical sales team.
We have a fantastic
Justin Paterson, AGI (21:59):
technical sales team here at AGI.
In North America, we have a lotof people who have significant
industry experience coming fromall of the major industry
players.
And the same is in Brazil andfrankly, around the other
regions in the world we operate,which is everywhere.
We are international.
So the technical sales group,our team, we focus on recruiting
(22:23):
and bringing on people thathave this actual real
operational experience and cantalk to our customers from a
practical standpoint and bridgethe gap with the engineering
folks.
And then in engineering, wealso have a number of people
like myself who have some realpractical hands-on operational
experience that can also talktechnically about how do we
(22:44):
design the equipment?
What do we need for thesolution here?
What's going to bring us intocompliance with the regulations,
but not blow up the costeither.
Like what is a a practical,pragmatic solution.
And AGI Technical Sales canabsolutely offer that to our
customers.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (23:00):
So technical sales team members, they bridge
that gap between sales andexecution, ensure that the
equipment is quoted accurately,specifications are correct, like
you touched on, and solutions,like you also touched on, are
tailored or customized to theapplication.
So talk a little bit more aboutwhat their support also
(23:21):
includes
Justin Paterson, AGI (23:22):
product from AGI.
When we get involved in a majorcapital project like this, we
are on site from firstconception working with not only
the capital projects team, butactually the operations team who
really know the facility.
We want to understand from theboots on the ground standpoint,
what are the challenges withyour particular facility?
(23:42):
Not what does headquartersthink you need, but that's part
of it.
And headquarters is going toproduce a specification, but we
also want to understand from thestandpoint of the people using
the equipment and actually ininhabiting the facility, which
direction does the windpredominantly blow from?
What challenges do you haveworking with the ship on the
dock side?
Things like that, that weintegrate into what we put
(24:03):
together for our projectproposal.
And then we're with thecustomer through well-passed
commissioning.
So some of our projects inBrazil, as part of our service,
we attach someone fromengineering to the facility for
the full commissioning.
year after the facility startsup to make sure that everything
is functioning correctly, theequipment break-in is going
well, and performance is asexpected.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (24:25):
Now, let's segment over to space traffic
and lease pressures.
This, again, can be reallyspecific to port facilities, not
always, but certainly havetheir own challenges and then
solutions to follow.
So, let's first talk aboutcontainer traffic preference
over bulk grain.
Justin Paterson, AGI (24:45):
This you see a lot on the west coast of
North America.
Container traffic, it comes andgoes a little bit in terms of
the preference of portauthorities, but typically has
been pressure to move bulkoperations out of, let's say,
downtown Vancouver.
And there is a preference tocontainer traffic because it's
cleaner, it's quieter, it'sperceived as more efficient.
(25:06):
And so this just adds to someof the pressure on bulk facility
operators to be more efficientwith ever-decreasing footprint
they have available for them tooperate
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (25:17):
in.
And don't forget about leaserenewals, space constraints.
There's a lot going on.
Justin Paterson, AGI (25:23):
There's a lot going on there, especially
in, again, going back to myVancouver experience, most of
the facilities, they're not onowned land.
So the land is leased from thefederal government for a certain
number.
That's how long you have tooperate and to achieve the
return on your investment inthat space and then you
basically you return the landand whatever you built on it
(25:46):
back to the government.
Oh wow.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (25:47):
Urban encroachment and increasing
scrutiny over dust, noise...
emissions you said be a goodneighbor that means a lot you've
touched on that anything elseyou want to add about the
increasing scrutiny over dustnoise and emissions yeah uh
Justin Paterson, AGI (26:04):
you know environmental topics uh are the
name of the game now and notjust related to fugitive dust
emissions most facilities andbuilt up areas have noise
specifications none of theneighbors of these facilities
want to listen to a gearboxhowling to them in the middle of
the night so all of this isfactors into sort of
(26:24):
increasingly technical solutionsthat are required from
equipment providers.
Noise is a byproduct of theamount of power that you're
putting into a piece ofequipment.
So when we go to build a 2,500ton per hour bucket elevator,
everything has to be scrutinizedfor noise emissions because we
have to stay within potentiallya certain specification.
So these are all things thathave to be thought about when
(26:45):
you're looking at putting awhole lot more horsepower
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (26:49):
in the same footprint.
There's so much to think about.
Now, in terms of AGI solutions,large capacity equipment for
space.
So we have constrained ports.
That's a challenge.
How does AGI support that?
Dust control systems areimportant.
Can you highlight those thingsand any other examples you have
(27:09):
of influencing local regulationsrelated to the port or the
region or the country?
Well, unfortunately we don'thave any
Justin Paterson, AGI (27:17):
influence over local regulations.
We kind of just have to followthem.
But yes, it goes back to,again, the dust being the
biggest one that we have controlover.
And AGI does offer like a fullsuite of dust control solutions
that are appropriate for portinfrastructure.
Whether it's spot filtration orcentral baghouse filtration,
AGI does have a complete productline to handle that.
(27:40):
And as well, engineering groupto support actually configuring
a solution to a particularapplication.
And beyond that, the noise iscertainly part of it.
And a little bit, to a certainextent, the aesthetics.
I've actually been on projectsin Vancouver where the color
that the motor was painted waspart of the building permit
because they didn't want it tolook out of place in the
(28:00):
skyline.
That's potentially a uniqueCanadian issue, but we deal with
all of it.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (28:07):
Yeah.
Wow.
Lots to consider.
AGI helped change regulationsin Brazil by introducing
enclosed belt conveyors.
the industry standard.
AGI brought
Justin Paterson, AGI (28:18):
this product to Brazil.
And so just the background onit, I guess.
Previously, everything in theBrazil port was on open belts.
You have a lot of fugitive dustemissions.
The other problem they have inport operations is it rains a
lot next to the ocean.
And so you have, this shouldn'tbe new to you, but the enclosed
(28:39):
belt is weathertight.
So you have increased loading aship in the rain is still a
problem because you're conveyingproduct off the end of the
conveyor.
But doing transfers within thefacility, you don't have as much
issue with rainwatercontamination of the product
that's being transferred withinthe plant when you're using an
enclosed belt.
But Brazil, the biggest was thefugitive dust emissions.
(29:01):
And now that's the regulation.
Open belts are not permittedhere anymore.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (29:06):
Bring up some really, yeah, very interesting
points.
Let's talk about flexibilityand future-proofing.
Some of the topics forconsideration include equipment
that supports multiplecommodities, obviously running
multiple commodities, so itmakes sense, and
cross-contamination prevention.
For example, self-cleaningspouts, adapting to large
(29:29):
vessels.
And this is post Panama ships,for example, climate related
challenges.
There's a lot to consider.
Can you describe those a littlemore detail?
And then what are AGI solutionsfor each of those?
Justin Paterson, AGI (29:42):
Yeah, what this question and this topic
drives out a little bit is like,we don't know what things are
going to be like in 10 or 15years from now.
Port facilities, major, majorcapital investments.
And so when...
The choices made to make amajor upgrade to a facility,
they want as much flexibility aspossible built into it.
(30:03):
If you talk to me 10, 12 yearsago when I was strictly working
in North America and said, hey,you know, Justin, in 10 or 12
years, you're going to beinstalling a 2,500 ton per hour
conveyor specifically for sugar.
I would have said, wow, that'sridiculous, but that is what
we're working on right now.
And so also the shifting tradepatterns.
(30:24):
So depending on theagricultural economic situation
in the world, export trends comeand go.
So places where you seepreviously, you said a lot of
soybean exports from the US isdrying up quite a bit right now.
And Canada used to be a lot ofcanola meal exports.
That's kind of dried up alittle bit right now.
(30:45):
Those assets, they're stilltrying to work them.
So it's a shift in othercommodities.
So something that may have beendesigned or conceived for one
trade pattern to support onetrade pattern, you need to have
some flexibility to be able tosupport what you don't foresee
coming and so you know agi inbrazil for instance our high
(31:06):
roller is really well suited forconveying sugar which is
something that you know wedesigned into it when we made
the brazil product not knowingto what extent it was really
going to take off for the sugarmarket here in brazil also
supports soybeans does wheatdoes corn so having that sort of
flexibility in your equipmentis is critical to running a
(31:26):
successful port operationbecause you don't know what's
going to come at you can be assimple as somebody making a
tweet that changes globaleconomic agricultural trade
patterns
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (31:36):
So these are incredible, as you said, capital
investments.
There's some risk involved.
Want to reduce the risk, makegood decisions.
Some of those decisions supportmultiple commodities, being
flexible, as you said.
Before we go here, I want totouch on global trade shifts and
strategic positioning.
Oh, goodness.
(31:56):
There's so much to talk abouthere.
I don't even know where tostart.
But there are, in fact,shifting trade routes, right?
Absolutely.
We'll just start there.
Justin Paterson, AGI (32:05):
Yeah, as we've seen, without getting into
the politics behind it, withsort of the global trade
disruption that's happened sincethe beginning of the year, and
then retaliatory measures takenby other countries, it's really
screwed up, to a certain extent,established agricultural trade
networks.
The example I keep pointing tois soybean exports from the US,
(32:29):
or previous to that, canolaexports from Canada have been
severely impacted by things thataren't strictly agricultural
related.
It's not like there was a cropfailure.
It's that there's been somechange in the geopolitical
environment that's caused cropmovements to become
uneconomical.
(32:49):
And so that plays into, like Isaid previously, having
flexibility in your equipment tobe able to work with different
products depending on what'savailable and what's most
economical to ship.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (33:03):
Yes, geopolitical climate is dynamic
and it's ever-changing.
And so obviously we've got alot to think about here and
shifting trade routes.
Let's talk about importance ofoperational flexibility and
speed.
Justin Paterson, AG (33:15):
Absolutely.
When you have either railwayassets that come in, that you
have to unload your train carsand get the equipment back out
in the country, or in thesituation where there's a ship
at birth and that needs to beloaded and turned, the faster
the equipment can run, thefaster the commodity can be
conveyed, the faster that you'regoing to put those things back
to work, making money and notsitting there waiting for you.
(33:38):
So the everywhere in the portthat the focus is on how quickly
can you move product from pointA to point B.
That's just what it's aboutnow.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (33:48):
So AGI solutions are there to support
you, other players or industryare there, but it's always
evaluating constantly in termsof these global trade shifts and
how that's impacting strategicpositioning.
So Global Player, how can weuse a system or product that has
been successful in one regionand localize it for another?
Justin Paterson, AGI (34:11):
We're doing a lot of that.
Brazil is a success story, forinstance.
So we've taken a lot of AGI'sestablished North American
product.
And again, going back to thegeopolitical situation, Brazil's
tough to import stuff into.
So we needed to figure out howto build it in Brazil with
Brazilian specification ofsteel, Brazil is a partially
(34:32):
metric country.
So bearing sizes, shaft sizes,fasteners are all different than
what we have in North America.
So AGI does a lot ofregionalization of its products
to serve better the Brazilmarket.
We took an established productfrom North America and
configured it so that we caneffectively manufacture it in
Brazil with spare parts that areavailable in Brazil.
(34:53):
And also, relative to what aresome of the peculiarities of the
Brazil market, we don't exporta lot of sugar from the United
States, for instance, or Canada.
Brazil exports a huge amount ofsugar.
So it requires a slightlydifferent configuration of
bucket elevator conveyor to dothat.
And we take an establishedproduct design conception and
(35:18):
customize it for the realspecific needs of the region and
the customer.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (35:22):
Great thought process there.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate all the supportyou're delivering to our whole
grain podcast listeners.
Justin, we're talking aboutpoor pressures today.
They are real.
They're very different fromother grain facilities.
We're talking about navigatinggrain facility challenges with
(35:42):
smart equipment solutions.
AGI is a solution provider,certainly in this area and
others.
What are some of your closingsentiments or statements or
recap some of those highlights?
Justin Paterson, AGI (35:55):
Yeah, I mean, AGI, as you said, is a
creative solution provider.
We like to understand what itis that our customers require
and really what are theiroperational pressures and
challenges and drive down onwhat problem we're really trying
to solve for them and then comeup with a solution that's going
to be effective, be robust,meet or exceed their
(36:15):
expectations, and then supportthe heck out of it.
That's what AGI's business is.
And that's what my position istoo.
As part of the AGI team, tosupport our major commercial
customers in this way.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (36:30):
Justin, thank you.
Thank you, AGI, for supportingand advancing the grain handling
and grain processing industry.
Your insights are veryinformative and very timely and
very relevant.
We will include any and all keylinks and things you want to
include in our show notes foraction items for Whole Grain
Podcast listeners.
Make sure you go tothejeeps.com forward slash Whole
(36:51):
Grain Podcast, the websitethere.
There'll be actually a link fora page dedicated just to, you
got to see Justin.
You got to get his headshotthere and especially Special
graphic there will have a link,of course, for this player.
Some of you are listening fromthere.
The show notes will be there.
The transcript of the show isthere.
And of course, this show isfound on just about every
podcast directory out there.
Share this with your colleaguesand your network.
(37:13):
This is an important one.
It's such a dynamic environmentand EGI's organizations are
here to support.
you and solutions and it's goodto have conversations.
So we will leave importantlinks in the show notes so that
people can get that again fromany of your podcast apps.
You'll see the show notes inthe description.
You'll also see that on ourwebsite.
For people to find out moreinformation about your
(37:36):
organization, Justin, what isthe best way to connect and
learn more?
I would head over
Justin Paterson, AGI (37:41):
to aggrowth.com and see our product
catalog and some of ourhighlight projects and various
other links from there.
We're also on other socialmedia platforms, LinkedIn,
Jim Lenz, GEAPS (37:52):
Facebook, places like that.
Wonderful.
Thank you, Justin, very much.
Thank you, AGI, for sponsoringtoday's episode.
It was a wonderful treat tohave you on the Whole Grain
Podcast.
Appreciate it.
Thanks.
That wraps up today's episodeof the Jeep's Whole Grain
Podcast.
A big thank you to JustinPatterson for sharing his global
expertise on how grain portfacilities can overcome the
(38:15):
mounting pressures of moderntrade.
This episode was made possiblethrough a generous support of
AGI, Aged Growth International.
Whether you're managingthroughput challenges,
navigating aging infrastructure,or seeking equipment that can
adapt to evolving regulations,AGI's team is ready to help with
customized engineering and highefficiency solutions.
(38:35):
If you found this episodeinsightful, I encourage you to
continue the conversation.
Here are a few reflectionquestions to discuss with your
team.
What are the greatest sourcesof pressure or inefficiency in
your port or terminal today?
Where might a Equipmentupgrades make the biggest impact
on performance or uptime.
And how are you preparing yourfacility for future capacity,
(38:58):
regulatory, or environmentaldemands?
How are you preparing yourfacility for future capacity,
regulatory, or environmentaldemands?
To learn more about AGI'sproducts and services, visit
aggrowth.com.
That's A-G-R-O-W-T-H dot com.
And for additional resources,education, and networking
(39:18):
opportunities, head overto GEAPS, that's g-e-a-p-s dot
com thanks for listening to thewhole grain podcast be sure to
subscribe so you never miss anepisode until next time stay
safe stay engaged and keepmoving grain forward
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