Since its establishment Big River has made a number of infrastructure upgrades. In 2014, improvements were made to the Lake Providence facility such as:
- Four high-capacity truck pits
- 10,000 BPH tower dryer
- Four 60,000 bushel hopper tanks
- 250,000 bushel storage tank
- Two truck scales
- Hydraulic probes
- Automatic belt sampler for barges
According to Agspring, the result was a gain of 12.5 million bushels loaded on the water this year, or an increase of 167%. This is the equivalent of more than 10,000 truckloads for export directly attributable to Big River Rice and Grain infrastructure improvements.
Using barges instead of trucks resulted in a projected savings of more than 647,000 gallons of diesel fuel and more than 14 million tons of GHG emissions.
Big River is currently making additional upgrades to the Lake Providence barge-loading belt with a June 2017 completion date. The updates include:
- Increasing the barge-loading belt speed from 30,000 bushels per hour to 50,000 bushels per hour (nearly doubling barge-loading capacity).
- Replacing the barge-loading downspout with new mechanical downspout.
- Purchasing a new small “push” boat to move barges in and out of the downspout. This will help reduce switch times in between barges during harvest.
Agspring was founded in 2012 in partnership with NGP Global Agribusiness Partners (NGP), an affiliate of NGP Energy Capital Management, with the goal of building the market leader in the agricultural midstream sector. The company last December successfully completed a management-led recapitalization in partnership with the American Infrastructure MLP Funds (AIM) and major institutional investors. The recapitalization enables Agspring to continue expanding by offering mid-sized agricultural logistics or processing firms a new avenue for growth and long-term viability, the company said.
