AgWired

The statistics for the new Richard W. Stegmann St. Louis Urea Center are pretty amazing.

Lange-Stegmann Director of Operations Rich Diffley says the facility has a capacity for 63,000 tons in 15 bins, ranging from 800 to 20,000 tons, which can be turned four times a month. “We can unload barges in approximately five hours, we can load truckloads in approximately six minutes and we can load a full rail car in approximately 17 minutes,” Rich says. “It allows us the ability to load a full unit train up to 80 rail cars within a 24 hour period.” That’s about a million tons a year, if you do the math.

Diffley explained that the fully automated system makes it the most efficient way to move large volumes of urea quickly and easily.

Diffley showed the media through the storage facility prior to the AGROTAIN International grand opening on Tuesday and impressed us with the mountains of urea in the bins. This photo shows the largest bin – at 20,000 tons – from above. It was maybe a third full and just looked like a pile of freshly plowed snow. Check out the photo album for more shots of the nation’s largest urea import terminal.

Listen to an interview with Rich Diffley here, conducted by myself and Tom Steever with Brownfield Network: agro-diffley.mp3

AGROTAIN Grand Opening Photo Album

When Lange-Stegmann acquired AGROTAIN eight years ago with that acquisition came Allen Sutton, vice president of business and product development. You could say the Stabilized Nitrogen Center that opened in St. Louis Tuesday was his brain child. Because of that, it will now bear his name – the Allen R. Sutton Stabilized Nitrogen Center.

Making that announcement, Lange-Stegmann president Mike Stegmann explained that five years ago he asked Allen to find a way for customers to make their SuperU product at their own locations. “After a little while, he came back and said ‘I don’t think there is a way, but I found something better’ and that something was the stabilized nitrogen center that you see here today,” Mike said. They made the decision to name the center after Allen because of his “commitment and dedication to the technology, the company and the industry as a whole.”

Allen’s enthusiasm and excitement for the fertilizer industry was evident when he talked to the media prior to the opening ceremony and proudly displayed and discussed the company and products they offer for the agriculture, turf and ornamental and golf course industries.

Listen to an interview with Allen here: agro-allen.mp3

AGROTAIN Grand Opening Photo Album

The brand new urea center in St. Louis received its official name at the grand opening ceremony on Tuesday – the Richard W. Stegmann St. Louis Urea Center.

Lange-Stegmann president Mike Stegmann (left) surprised his father Rich, who is chairman of the company, by naming the center after him. “It was really humbling,” Rich said in an interview after the ceremony.

Lange-Stegmann, the parent company of AGROTAIN International, was started in 1926 by Rich’s father-in-law Henry Lange and his brother Dewey. “At that time, it was meat scraps and tankage and steam bone meal that was fertilizer,” said Rich.

The reason the plant was first located at the site near the Mississippi River was because it was next to the stockyards. “At that time a lot of livestock moved by rail and they had to unload it every 24 hours,” Rich explained. “People would come in with trucks and they would haul back fertilizer.”

Stegmann celebrates his 48th year with the company on Friday and he is proud that this global corporation is still very much family-owned. “And our employees are like family too,” Stegmann says. “And that is very gratifying.” A whole line of family, friends, employees and business associates lined up to cut the ribbon opening the urea center and the adjacent Stabilized Nitogen Center.

Listen to an interview with Rich here: agro-rich.mp3

AGROTAIN Grand Opening Photo Album