The Logistics Terminal

Grain terminal in Tilbury Port expanded

Grain terminal in Tilbury Port expanded

The Port of Tilbury has completed development of a new major expansion for storage in the Grain Terminal which is part of the growth strategy. This has increased the storage capacity by 16,000 metric tonnes for imports and exports of wheat.

The grain terminal is one of the biggest in the country, celebrating its 50th anniversary of operation in June 2019. Handling an estimated 1.4million tonnes of crops from exported and UK markets, the new facilities will help to hold any further stock taken on. With a capacity of 136,000 tonnes this will prove beneficial to customers like Frontier as well as Milford Grain who have long-term contracts to store grains at the terminal.

The facility is 36m x 66m and 6 metres tall. It has been built in conjunction to the grain terminal already in place, taking advantage of the mill gallery conveyor system with conveyor belts in place to fill the new storage unit automatically. The capacity for the facility is 500 tonnes per hour.

Commercial Director at the Port of Tilbury, Peter Ward, spoke about the development: “As we celebrate the grain terminal’s 50th year, this new flat store provides us with more capacity to support our customer’s growing volumes. We are one of the UK’s largest grain stores with over 35million tonnes of product handled over the past 50 years and we hope to continue to play a significant part in the sector in the next half century. Our flexibility, capacity and quality accreditations, including AIB, TASCC and Organic Certified, allows us to deal with any changing trade patterns.”

Discussing the development, Milford Grain’s Alistair Groves said: “The addition of this new flat store facility considerably helps Millford Grain as a business, and our customer’s requirements. It also underlines the Port’s commitment to long term investment for our sector”.

The terminal is a vital facility in South East England for grain import and exports, reflecting the important role the Port of Tilbury plays. The terminal has over 200 silos with a wide range of sizes, to support flour as well as the ingredient market in the southeast, greater London all the way up the Midlands. A coastal shipping service is provided from Tilbury to its sister port in Kirkcaldy, based at Carr’s Milling, in Kirkcaldy, Scotland.