Another soybean processing plant announced for Nebraska
Nick Bowdish, president and CEO of N Bowdish Company LLC, which develops value-added projects for the ag sector, said ground-breaking on the 480-acre site is slated for spring this year.
Bowdish is spearheading the development of Norfolk Crush, LLC. He is also helping lead the development of Platinum Crush, a new soybean crush plant in Buena Vista County, Iowa, where construction begins next month.
Norfolk Crush will own the new Nebraska facility, which, it said, will cost around $375m to build.
The plant will crush 38.5 million bushels of soybeans annually, and will produce 847,000 tons of soybean meal per year (2,420 tons per day) and 77,000 tons of pelleted soybean hulls per year (220 tons per day) for livestock feed markets.
It will also see output totaling 450 million pounds of crude soybean oil per year (1.28 million pounds per day). That product can be used for a variety of applications, including the rapidly expanding renewable diesel industry, said the developer.
The Nebraska Central Railroad Company and Union Pacific Railroad will serve the facility.
Projects like this will help Nebraska remain an agricultural powerhouse, commented Nebraska governor, Pete Ricketts. “Norfolk Crush will be a great addition to support our soybean production in the state.”
The site will create 50 to 55 jobs, according to Norfolk Crush. The facility will be designed to allow the unloading of trucks at the rate of 60,000 bushels per hour, speeding up delivery of soybeans to the plant, it added.
Strategic location
The midwestern US state would seem to be an attractive option for soybean crushing operations. In an earlier announcement this week, Ag Processing Inc, (AGP), said it was to build a new soybean processing plant near David City, Nebraska, with the agribusiness group saying it wanted to capitalize on the growing domestic and global demand for soybean meal and soybean oil.
That facility will have the capacity to process over 50 million bushels of soybeans per year.
AGP’s chairman of the board, Lowell Wilson, said: “The soybean processing industry is experiencing tremendous growth and we believe a facility in East Central Nebraska is strategically located to serve our cooperative members and their farmer-owners.”
The availability and quality of soybeans in the area and access to major rail lines make David City an excellent location for the plant, added AGPs’ chief marketing officer, Mark Sandeen. AGP expects the facility to be operational in 2025.
