Archer Daniels Midland plans to get ahead of increased soy acreage on the Prairies by upgrading two crushing plants to handle more soybeans.
The U.S. agrifood firm said Monday it will upgrade its processing plant at Enderlin, N.D., about 80 km southwest of Fargo, to crush soybeans as well as canola and sunflower seed.
At Windsor, Ont., where ADM already crushes both canola and soybeans, the company said it will upgrade a canola crushing line to “flex line” that can also handle soy.
Upgrading the plant at Enderlin “will help us capitalize on growing soybean acreage in and around North Dakota,” John McGowan, ADM’s president for North American oilseeds, said in a release.
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The Windsor investment, he added, “will give us the flexibility to adjust our processing mix to optimize the plant’s efficiency and profitability.”
In all, he said, the moves give ADM will “the ability to drive margin-improvement and returns as crop supplies and market demand shift, and as customers’ needs change.”
The ADM Northern Sun plant at Enderlin, which processes flax as well as canola and sunflower seed, underwent capacity expansion work in 2005.
The Windsor plant, which ADM has owned since 1985, has capacity to crush 3,600 tonnes of oilseeds per day, and uses about half its capacity for soy, according to the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association.
Statistics Canada, in its acreage intentions report last Thursday, forecast soybean acres in Canada to slip by 3.4 per cent from the record 5.6 million planted in 2014, with acres in Ontario and Quebec dropping by 6.5 and 9.5 per cent respectively.
That said, the agency expects a 2.4 per cent increase in Manitoba soybean acres, to 1.3 million, and Saskatchewan acres to rise 24.1 per cent, to 335,000.
All four of those provinces planted record-high soy acres last year, StatsCan noted. — AGCanada.com Network
