AGP (Ag Processing Inc.) and the Port of Grays Harbor Authority on July 31 officially opened Terminal 4 at the Port of Grays Harbor in Aberdeen, Washington.

AGP, the Port of Grays Harbor's largest marine terminal customer, has invested more than $100 million in its Terminal 2 storage and export facility since 2001. Its existing facility is the largest soybean meal exporter on the West Coast.

AGP invested more than $123 million at the port by constructing an additional export ship loading facility at Terminal 4. To accommodate this expansion, the Port of Grays Harbor Authority made significant infrastructure improvements.

The Terminal 4 expansion and redevelopment project combined private and public investment.

AGP constructed a new bulk agricultural commodity transload facility on land leased at the port's Terminal 4B. The facility transfers soybean meal and other agricultural products from railcars to ships.

The port constructed new rail infrastructure within its marine terminal complex to support unloading, storage and assembly of unit trains serving Terminal 4B. It also redeveloped the 50-acre former Washington State Department of Transportation pontoon casting basin into a marine terminal cargo laydown area supporting Terminal 4A operations, improved site access and roadways, and upgraded marine fendering and stormwater systems.

Meeting Growing Demand for Soybean Meal

Terminal 4, AGP's second export facility, is intended to directly address capacity constraints and meet growing demand for soybean meal from the Asia-Pacific region, said Dean Thernes, AGP board chairman, during the grand opening attended by aviNews Asia, nutriNews Asia and porciNews Asia.

“This expansion is a physical manifestation of AGP’s core cooperative mission: to connect member producers’ raw materials to global, value-added markets, thereby maximizing returns for the owners,” he said.

Thernes said the existing Grays Harbor facility was operating at full capacity, making this project a strategic necessity, not an optional upgrade.

“The underlying driver is pure market logic. Our supply chain needed a larger, more efficient endpoint to capture a clear and growing revenue opportunity,” he said.

Committing to Asia-Pacific Growth

In his speech, AGP CEO Chris Schaffer said AGP executed a deliberate capacity bet. Terminal 4 is the linchpin to absorb the imminent surge in U.S. soybean meal production driven by new crush plants, targeting Asia-Pacific demand where the United States currently supplies only 30%.

Terminal 4 is designed to increase AGP's share by compressing lead times and ensuring consistent high-volume delivery. The operational model is unit train-synchronized loading from five plants to stage a 50,000-ton vessel in under two weeks, cutting cycle time from inland origin to Southeast Asia arrival to around 36 days.

With Terminal 4 integrated into AGP's western processing and unit train network, Schaffer said the cooperative scales exports, strengthens reliability and increases value returned to 200,000 family farms through 150 cooperative owners.

“We are committing to Asia-Pacific growth and to being a world-class logistics and export operator because revenue follows throughput and reliability in this market,” he said.

Largest-Ever Infrastructure Project

Leonard Barnes, Port of Grays Harbor executive director, said the port has completed its largest-ever infrastructure project, a strategic expansion of Terminal 4 centered on a partnership with AGP.

“This project was not merely a construction effort; it was a complex, multi-year undertaking to secure the port's long-term economic vitality by doubling cargo export volumes and creating more than 80 permanent, family-wage jobs,” he said.

The successful on-time and on-budget delivery was a direct result of a broad coalition of partners spanning federal agencies, tribal leadership, labor unions and private-sector contractors, all aligned to a single vision.

“While the physical assets, more than 50,000 feet of new rail and major dock improvements, are significant, the true leverage comes from solidifying the port's role as a critical logistics hub for moving American agricultural products to global markets,” Barnes said.

“We are a logistics company, but more than that, we move economies and opportunities. This investment reaffirms that identity.”

A Four-Year, Capital-Intensive Build

Explaining the newly opened Terminal 4, AGP Chief Operating Officer Lou Rickers said, “This is a four-year, capital-intensive build that overcame permitting, engineering and Pacific Northwest winter construction to deliver a rail-connected export facility now in commissioning, with power energized to the dock in March 2025 and to receiving in April 2025, proof of substantial completion and operational readiness.

“The engineering team logged 43,000 design hours; construction executed 402,000 hours, driving nearly 10 miles of piling, pouring 8,000 cubic yards of concrete, erecting 2,650 tons of steel and installing 38 miles of wire, all anchored by the Port of Grays Harbor's nine miles of new rail.”

Rickers said the facility connects Midwest soybeans to Pacific markets, shifting AGP's export posture from dependency to controlled throughput.

“We are a logistics-led exporter now, and we are taking the bet that disciplined commissioning converts this physical achievement into reliable volumes without slipping into post-build drag,” he said.

Source: aviNews International, "Newly opened Terminal 4 at Port of Grays Harbor targets Asia Pacific demand for soybean meal"