New GSI 788,000-bushel steel tank at Assumption Cooperative Grain Co.’s elevator in Pana, IL.

Assumption Cooperative Grain Co.

Started: 1934

Headquarters: Assumption IL

Total Grain Storage Capacity: 16 million bushels at six locations

Number of Employees: 30

Number of Members: 926

Crops Handled: corn, soybeans, soft red winter wheat

Key Personnel

Dan Beard, general manager

Jordan Hamilton, assistant manager/merchandiser

Larry Koontz, Pana location manager

Micah Wood, operations manager

Assumption Cooperative Grain Co.’s motto when it comes to adding storage is “If you build it, they will come.”

It all started back in 2006 when the Central Illinois coop built two new 730,000-bushel GSI tanks at its rail terminal northeast of Pana.

It continued in 2016 when a 788,000-bushel GSI steel tank was constructed and in 2020 when a 500,000-bushel GSI steel tank was added.

Even after these three sets of expansion, the coop’s 800-plus members continue to demand more storage and dumping speed.

According to General Manager Dan Beard, the coop’s two receiving pits, rated at a combined 30,000-bph, were getting too congested and causing long wait times at harvest time.

The coop’s board decided in the fall of 2023 to add more storage primarily for soybeans and a third receiving pit.

Beard says the coop turned to nearby contractor Grain Flo, Inc., Heyworth, IL, who had built the 2016 and 2020 tanks.

“We have hired Grain Flo as the general contractor for several projects during the past 12 years,” says Beard, who has been in the grain industry since 1994 and the coop’s general manager since September 2023. “We have a good working relationship with them, and their performance on this project went according to expectations.”

Other key project suppliers included:

• GAB Electric and Atchison Electric as the electrical contractors.

• Wieber Steel Construction erected the tank.

• SKS Engineers, LLC performed the engineering for the tank and support tower foundations.

Construction on the $5.8 million project broke ground in the spring of 2024 and was operational by the fall harvest. It includes a GSI 105-foot-diameter steel tank, receiving pit, grain handling equipment, and a new driveway to help traffic flow.

STEEL STORAGE ADDITION

The 788,000-bushel flat-bottom corrugated tank with outside stiffeners is 99 feet to the eave and 127 feet to the peak. An updraft aeration system, designed by Decatur Aeration, has four 50-hp, 1,750-rpm Chicago Blower centrifugal fans providing 1/8 cfm per bushel for corn through in-floor ducting with the assistance of 13 2-hp roof exhausters. It has a 24-cable Rolfes@Boone KTX wireless temperature monitoring system. The tank sits on a 8-foot stem wall with a 6-foot-wide-x-6-foot-tall above-ground tunnel.

Adjacent to the new tank and between two existing tanks, Grain Flo erected a new mechanical-style 1,000-bushel receiving pit inside a 25-foot-x-32-foot-x-22-foot concrete building (a 13-foot-x-30-foot-x-10-foot concrete MCC building adjoins the receiving pit building).

The 20,000-bph pit, the facility’s third, deposits grain into a 20,000-bph GSI drag conveyor which then feeds a new 20,000-bph GSI bucket elevator, 188 feet tall. The leg, sitting inside a 16-foot-x-16-foot-x-170-foot LeMar support tower, is equipped with a single row of Tapco 20x9 elevator buckets.

The leg feeds a Schlagel 20-inch, six-duct full-round, 45-degree electric SyncroSet® distributor which then fills the new tank via a GSI 20,000-bph drag conveyor and/or the two adjoining tanks via two new AGI Hi Roller 20,000-bph enclosed belt conveyors. All three conveyors sit in a 6-foot-wide Grain Flo catwalk.

GRAIN RECLAIM

Grain is reclaimed from the tank via a GSI 10,000-bph drag conveyor, in an above-ground tunnel, back to the new leg which can then feed the facility’s train-loading system through overhead drag conveyors. The tank also has two side draws for loading trucks and a 12-inch GSI X-Series zero-entry bin sweep for final cleanout.

Grain Flo installed a 5,000-bushel Schuld Bushnell smooth wall steel bin on top of the receiving building for loading soybeans into trucks. A 24-foot, 17,000-bushel GSI hopper-bottom bin was also installed next to the new tank for handling off-grade soybeans. It reclaims grain back to the leg via a 5,000-bph GSI drag conveyor.

A 500-pound special-purpose personnel manlift was installed between the leg casings of the bucket elevator to allow coop workers to access the top of the bucket elevators and tanks.

The Pana facility’s grain volume, Beard says, is split between corn (70%), soybeans (25%), and wheat (5%). It ships 25-car unit trains of corn on a Union Pacific main line to sites in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana.

The second part of the 2024 expansion, Beard says, will include another 105-foot diameter tank in 2026.