Newly opened Terminal 4 at Port of Grays Harbor targets Asia Pacific demand for soybean meal

• ✅ AGP investment (private) – Build a new bulk agricultural commodity transload facility on land leased at the Port of Grays Harbor’s Terminal 4B, which transfers soybean meal and other agricultural products from railcars to ships at berth.
• ✅ Port investment (public) – Construct new rail within the port’s marine terminal complex to support offloading, storage and assembly of unit trains to accommodate rail traffic to the new Terminal 4B facility; redevelop the 50-acre former WSDOT pontoon casting basin site into marine terminal cargo laydown area to support the continued operation of Terminal 4A; Construct secured site access and roadway improvements; and upgrade the Terminal 4 marine fendering and stormwater systems.

Meeting growing demand for soybean meal

The Terminal 4, AGP’s second export facility, is aimed to directly address capacity constraints and meet growing demand for soybean meal from Asia Pacific, 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 added.

Mr 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 added.

Committing to Asia Pacific growth

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

The 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 the Terminal 4 integrated into AGP’s western processing and unit-train network, Mr Schaffer said the cooperative scales exports, hardens reliability, and increases value returned to 200,000 family farms via 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 added.

Largest-ever infrastructure project

Leonard Barnes, the 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 over 80 permanent, family-wage jobs,” he explained.

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 – over 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,” said Mr Barnes.

“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 about the newly opened Terminal 4, AGP COO 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.”

Mr 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 added.

Note: This trip was part of the Southeast Asia Trade Mission sponsored by US Soybean Export Council (USSEC).

USSEC champions US Soy worldwide. Through innovation, sustainability and partnerships, they connect farmers to global markets. USSEC members represent the soy supply chain, including US Soy farmers, processors, commodity shippers, merchandisers, allied agribusinesses and agricultural organizations. USSEC is funded by the Soy Checkoff, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) matching funds, and industry.