News from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The Oklahoma Corporation Commission on Thursday (June 17) approved construction and operation of a new cotton gin near Carrier, in Garfield County.

The gin will be owned and operated by Johnston Gins Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the W.B. Johnston Grain Co. of Enid. It will have a ginning capacity of 30 bales per hour, or 30,000 bales in a 100-day ginning season, a license application filed with the commission indicates.

The application was only the third for a new cotton gin in Oklahoma since 1992 and the second in two years for a new gin in northern Oklahoma. Licenses were granted for a new gin near Altus in 1992 and another near Blackwell in 1998. The commission also approved the reopening of a gin in Minco in 1998.

The new gin near Carrier will be about 16 miles northwest of Enid. It is expected to be operational for the 2000 ginning season, Lew Meibergen, Johnston Gins president and W.B. Johnston Grain Co. chief executive officer, said at a commission hearing.

He said there is no other existing or proposed cotton gin within a 30-mile-radius of the Carrier gin location. No one appeared at the hearing to protest approval of the application.

Meibergen said the Johnston Grain Co. was approached by several north-central Oklahoma cotton growers who have been transporting cotton to ginning facilities near Burns Flat, in western Oklahoma, and wanted a gin closer to their fields to reduce transportation costs.

"They asked us to consider it, and we have, and we feel that within the year there will be adequate acres in this general area to justify construction of the gin. We feel it will take between 9,000 and 11,000 bales per year to break even," Meibergen said.

Meibergen said that cotton acreage in north-central Oklahoma will be below estimates this year because of excessive moisture that delayed planting. "But (in the future) we feel that there should be or could be anywhere from 15,000 to 25,000 acres planted within a 30-mile or 20-mile radius of the gin, and with the yields they have we’re looking at 25,000 to 30,000 bales," he said.

"We’ve been in the grain business, the ag business, for almost 106 years, and it has always been our practice to try to accommodate and take care of the needs of the producers in our particular area, and that’s why we’ve made the decision to build the gin," Meibergen said.

The company also recently completed construction of a cotton gin in Anthony, Kan., about 48 miles north of Carrier.

The Corporation Commission has regulated public cotton ginning services in Oklahoma since 1915. Other cotton gin operations, such as the sale of cotton seed and hulls and cotton seed oil, are not regulated.

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