Yunnan builds the largest ammonia distribution centre

A 60,000 ton ammonia distribution centre in the Yunnan Province in China was completed this month. As the largest agricultural products distribution centre in the area, its establishment will increase Yunnan’s cold storage capacity by three times and contribute to the modernisation of the Province’s logistics for agricultural products.

The South Eastern Chinese 180,000 m² distribution centre, completed in August 2013, handles agricultural products from across the province. The cooling capacity of the cold storage is 60,000 tons. It has 120 truck platforms and can serve 3000 local merchants at the same time.

Yunnan’s cold storage capacity to be tripled

YUNNAN Asean Agricultural Products Co., LTD. invested 1 billion RMB (€121million) in building the new food storage and distribution centre. The first phase of the project was to build a cold store with a cooling capacity of 60,000 tons. In the second phase, another 140,000 tons of cold storage will be built, increasing the total capacity of the distribution centre to 200,000 tons, which is 3 times the current level found in the province.

Safety is the primary consideration

The distribution centre uses ammonia in its refrigeration system and focus on energy-efficiency and safety. To ensure the quality of agricultural products and consumer security, safety is one of the most important concerns in the design and build of this cold store. The ammonia screw chiller units in the cold storage facility are produced by Dalian Bingshan Group. In order to avoid accidental ammonia leaks or spills, the manufacturer adopts many methods to prevent such incidents including controlling leaks and spills, ammonia detection and isolation, and ammonia sensors.

More large cold stores are needed for agriculture products and Yunann’s cold chain

Yunnan Province is one of the most important production bases of fresh agricultural products like vegetables and warm tropical fruit in China. Yunnan agriculture product logistic has the characteristics of large amounts and variety of kinds. Despite the large and varied amount of produce the development of the logistics needed to manage this agricultural bounty is lagging behind. Insufficient cold storage capacity and low efficiency refrigeration equipment has prevented service levels from keeping pace with the rapid development of the agriculture industry. As demand grows for cold chain logistics for agricultural products in Yunnan, it is becoming increasingly urgent that refrigeration systems, are modernised, more cold storage capacity is built and regional and across regional cold chain logistics networks are developed.