By Connie Sieh Groop

Construction of the Ag Processing Inc soybean processing plant at Aberdeen, S.D., is nearing completion. A grand opening is planned for July.

The AGP plant will have the capacity to process 150,000 bushels of soybeans per day, or about 50-million bushels a year. Fifty people will operate the plant, which will run 24-hours a day.

The Aberbeen facility is AGP’s 10th plant in the U.S. and its first in South Dakota. AGP purchased 300 acres of land from the Aberdeen Development Corporation for the plant. Concrete structures provide storage for 4 million bushels of grain. Eight miles of rail track lay within the yards where unit trains will be loaded. There is space on the site for future expansion. The Aberdeen processing plant is the largest single investment in AGP’s history. 

AGP will produce soybean oil and meal at the plant. It’s projected that the plant will ship 465 million pounds of crude soybean oil per year to its Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri refineries where the oil will be used in the food products and in biodiesel. AGP is the second-largest biodiesel producer in the country. 

Some of soybean meal produced at the plant will be sold locally to livestock producers.

“What will be great is the [plant’s] proximity to the expanding livestock industry,” says Matt Caswell, AGP vice president for member-corporate relations and government affairs. “That is another way to connect with the local community. We will sell soybean meal to those in the local livestock industry.”

Many millions of tons of soybean meal produced at the plant will move by rail to Aberdeen, Wash., where AGP has a deep-water facility at the Port of Grays Harbor. The Aberdeen plant is closer to the port than any of the company’s other U.S. facilities. Meal from the plant will be among the products AGP will send to its customers, primarily in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. 

“There continues to be demand for U.S. soybeans and soybean products,” Caswell says. “There have been some trade disruptions but overall, we believe growth will continue in the market. With the acreage expansions, the improvements in production practices and the yield increases, production of soybeans will increase in this area. This plant will provide a large and new market for those soybeans.”

VALUE ADDED: Soybean oil and meal will be produced at the new Ag Processing Inc processing plant in Aberdeen, S.D.

AGP is the largest cooperative soybean processing company in the world and a leading supplier of soybean meal and refined vegetable oils. It currently operates nine soybean processing plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Nebraska, as well as four soybean oil refineries and three biodiesel production facilities. In addition to its commodity-based products, AGP’s branded products include SoyGold (biodiesel) and AminoPlus (bypass protein). AGP is owned by 147 local and regional cooperatives representing more than 250,000 farmers in the U.S. and Canada.

Sieh Groop writes from Frederick, S.D.