DECATUR, ILL. — Archer Daniels Midland Co., through its affiliate Alfred C. Toepfer International GmbH (ACTI), will expand its grain origination, storage, transportation and export operations along the Danube river in Romania. The project includes 12 grain elevators along the Danube, one inland-storage elevator in Western Romania and a joint-venture export elevator in the Black sea port of Constanta.

“This project is strategically important as we expand our origination network in Eastern Europe,” said Gary L. Towne, chairman of the management board of ACTI. “The storage facilities and export elevator are well-positioned to give us additional capacity to move crops along the Danube river and to the Black sea, while the addition of Toepfer-owned barges provides us with greater control of our supply chain and helps us achieve favorable transportation margins in what can be a volatile market.”

The network will be similar to ADM’s origination-through-export networks along the Paraguay river in South America and the Mississippi river in the United States. The Romanian network will include three river elevators at Giurgiu and one river elevator each at Braila, Constanta, Corabia, Oltenita, Orsova and Zimmicea. ACTI also will construct new elevators at Calarasi, Giurgiu and Moldova Noua, and it has acquired a barge fleet to connect the network of river elevators to the joint-venture export elevator recently finished in Constanta. ACTI plans to construct elevators at Bordusani, Corabia and Galati.

“We see great opportunities to increase our origination and transportation capabilities along the Danube river in Romania, which has become a net exporter of grain and oilseeds over the past several years,” Mr. Towne said. “The Danube river export project creates an end-to-end network, giving us the ability to originate crops directly from farmers, transport and store them, and ultimately export them to markets around the world.”