In the spring of 2020, the Fessenden Coop Association (FCA) needed to add storage at its shuttle-loading facility in Hamberg, ND. The coop’s management team had a good idea of what type of storage it wanted.
According to former FCA General Manager Mark Hovland, the coop considered a large diameter steel tank or a temporary storage system, but ruled them out because they didn’t offer the easy fill, unfill, and segregation the concrete tanks they were used to using had to offer.
So the coop in the spring of 2020 called Vigen Construction Inc., East Grand Forks, ND, who had built the coop’s original 1.3-million-bushel slipform concrete terminal in 2013 and a 1-million bushel two-tank slipform concrete annex in 2014. Vigen began designing the storage annex utilizing VAA to provide structural engineering for the new slipform concrete annex and its upper equipment tower.
“Vigen is the king of concrete tanks in our area and they take care of equipment problems following construction,” says Hovland, who retired in June after 42 years in the grain industry, all of them with FCA. He started as an hourly worker, managed one of the coop’s country elevators and its first edible bean plant, handled merchandising, and became general manager in 2003.
Hamberg, LLC
The series of what has come to be three projects started in 2012, when Fessenden Coop teamed up with CHS to form Hamberg, LLC with Fessenden Coop as the managing partner. The joint venture broke ground in the spring of 2012 on a greenfield 1.3-million-bushel slipform concrete terminal in Hamberg, ND. It was completed in August 2013 and included an 8,500-foot loop track to hold up to 133 cars, with a spur siding to hold 35 additional cars.
The new terminal replaced an old wood crib elevator Fessenden Coop operated in Hamberg until 2010. It allowed the joint venture to ship 115-car unit trains of spring wheat, soybeans, and corn on a BNSF mainline to the Pacific Northwest, Mexico, Gulf terminals, Superior, WI, and several other U.S destinations. It also ships a number of single hopper and boxcar shipments of pinto and black beans to packagers and canners throughout the United States and Mexico. The Hamberg terminal handles over 14 million bushels of grain annually split between soybeans (40%), corn (35%), and wheat (25%).
The joint venture followed that up in the spring of 2014 by hiring Vigen to build a two-tank slipform concrete annex adjacent to the 2013 terminal. The two tanks, each 500,000 bushels, fill, store, and empty grain back to the terminal’s handling system. It opened on Jan. 1, 2015. Throughout the joint venture with CHS, Fessenden Coop managed the terminal until it bought out CHS in 2018.
In the spring of 2020, Fessenden decided it needed more storage and once again hired Vigen to add a concrete annex. Construction started immediately and was completed by the harvest in 2022.
In 2018, the coop built its second edible bean plant at the 200-acre Hamberg site. The 650,000-cwt. plant can process 1 million cwt. annually of pinto and black beans. The coop has also operated a 275,000-cwt. edible bean plant at Fessenden since 1992.
CenDakCooperative
After the project was complete, in the spring of 2023, Fessenden Coop started merger talks with CenDak Cooperative, headquartered in Leeds, ND. Those talks led to the merger of the two cooperatives which took effect Jan. 1, 2024. The merged coops consist of 11 grain elevators and two edible bean processing plants Fessenden Coop operated, as well as two grain elevators CenDak Cooperative operated. The merged coops have 1,200 active members.
The annex, located inside the loop track, consists of eight 45-foot-x-140-foot tanks with three full interstice bins (43,000 bushels each) and two half interstices (19,000 bushels each). Like the tanks in the original workhouse and two-tank annex, each tank has a North American Equipment Co. combination Luft Kanal air-assisted aeration system and unloading floor. A set of four AGI Airlanco 60-hp centrifugal fans supply a minimum of 1/10 cfm per bushel. Each tank also has a pair of 2-hp roof exhausters.
A two-bay truck receiving shed was built between the workhouse and the new annex. Once the grain is dumped, it is conveyed to two 30,000-bph Schlagel bucket elevators, outfitted with 28x10 Maxi-Lift Tiger-CC elevator buckets. Prior to moving to storage, grain goes through one of two 30,000-bph GSI gravity cleaners.
The tanks are then filled by three overhead Schlagel 30,000-bph drag conveyors. With air assist from the KanalSystem floors, the tanks empty through side sumps onto 60,000-bph AGI Hi Roller enclosed belt conveyors back to the main terminal’s shipping legs.
The project also includes one Schlagel 30,000-bph drag conveyor to move grain from the new annex to the original workhouse.
So far, CenDak General Manager Tony Gratten says the coop is very happy with the operations of the new annex, adding “We have plenty of room inside the loop track to add more storage in the future.”
The Hamberg project is just part of the coop’s growth. In late 2022, CenDak started construction of a 1.1-million-bushel concrete annex, designed and built by Vigen, at its Niles, ND train-loading site. It was finished in July.
All told, the coop has invested over $68 million in additional storage at Hamberg and Niles, the Hamberg loop track, scale house, and warehouse, and edible bean plant.
CenDakCooperative
headquarters: Fessenden, ND
Total grain storage capacity: 20+ million bushels at 11 grain locations
Annual grain volume: 50 million bushels
Annual sales: $650 million
Number of members: 1,200
Crops handled: Soybeans (40%), Corn (35%), Wheat (25%)
Key Personnel
Tony Gratton, general manager
Mark Hovland, former general manager
Nick Schaefer, northern grain division manager
Mark Pederson, southern grain division manager
John Wood, operations manager
Randy Heck, safety manager
Tyler Schatz, Hamberg manager
Brad Stevens, edible bean division manager
Matt Schilling, edible bean operations manager
Supplier List
AERATION FANS
AGI
AERATION SYSTEM
North American Equipment Co., Inc.
BEARING SENSORS
Rolfes@Boone
BELTING (LEG)
Continental
BUCKET ELEVATORS
Schlagel
CATWALK
Vigen Construction
CLEANER
GSI
CONCRETE TANK BUILDER
Vigen Construction
CONTRACTOR
Vigen Construction
CONTROL SYSTEM
Hope Electric
CONVEYORS (DRAG)
Schlagel
CONVEYOR (ENCLOSED BELT)
AGI
ENGINEER (STRUCTURAL)
VAA
DUST COLLECTION SYSTEM
Vigen Construction
DUST FILTERS
Coperion (Schenck Process FPM)
ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR
Hope Electric
ELEVATOR BUCKETS
Maxi-Lift Inc.
GRAIN TEMPERATURE SYSTEM
Rolfes@Boone
LEVEL INDICATORS
Hope Electric
MILLWRIGHT
Vigen Construction
MOTION SENSORS
Process Control Systems
MOTORS
Toshiba
ROOF SYSTEM
NIJAC Roofing
SPEED REDUCERS
Dodge Industrial, Inc.
TOWER SUPPORT SYSTEM
Vigen Construction