August 22, 2007

Louis Dreyfus opens soy processing plant in Indiana

A French agricultural company dedicated a US$150 million soybean biodiesel production plant Tuesday (August 21) that is expected to produce about 88 million gallons of the fuel annually.

The Louis Dreyfus Soybean Processing and Biofuel Plant, which will employ about 70 workers, is expected to come online in October, said company spokesman Charles Deister.

Company officials call the plant, located near Claypool about halfway between Fort Wayne and South Bend, the largest integrated soybean-based production plant in the world.

"Claypool is a strategic centrepiece for our company's future. This plant affirms our century-old practice as a market innovator," Robert Louis-Dreyfus, chairman of Louis Dreyfus Commodities, said in a statement.

The plant is capable of annually crushing 50 million bushels of soybeans - more than 17 percent of all the soybeans grown in Indiana on average each year.

Aside from its biodiesel production, the plant will be able to produce over 1 million tonnes of soybean meal annually for use in feedstock.

Parent company Louis Dreyfus Corp., based in Paris, has locations in 53 countries, according to its Web site.

Kip Tom, a board member of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, said that in a single year, the plant will buy more than US$450 million worth of soybeans produced by Indiana farmers.