‘Corporate decision’ leads to CHS Claremont elevator closure
The CHS Elevator located in downtown Claremont has closed. CHS has directed its members to use the elevator facility in nearby Kasson. Staff photo by Rick Bussler
CHS has closed the elevator in Claremont and directed members to take their soybeans and grains to the elevator in Kasson.
Nick Ulschmid, logistics manager at CHS, said co-op members were notified of the closing earlier this season. He said the closure was a corporate decision made partly because of the damage to the grain bins from a tornado in 2023. One bin was destroyed, and others were damaged in the storm.
The Claremont elevator is also the smallest of the local CHS elevators. Despite the closure of the elevator, Ulschmid said, other operations in Claremont, including agronomy, will remain open.
CHS has trucks that can help the growers get their soybeans and corn to the Claremont facility, he said, and are providing the growers with a discount.
Ulschmid said that the soybeans being delivered to Kasson and other area elevators now will be sent to the CHS processing plants in Mankato and Fairmont. From there, they will be transported by truck to barges at the Minnesota River terminal in Savage and sent down the Mississippi River to the Gulf Coast.
CHS, he said, has a terminal at Myrtle Grove, La. From there, much of the crop is loaded on to seagoing vessels and sold globally.
On the return trip, he said, fertilizer will be transported back to Minnesota.
Much of the corn grown in the area, Ulschmid said, is sent to various ethanol plants for processing.