For the first time in more than 30 years, a new canola crushing plant will be built in Alberta.
Agriculture giant Cargill announced Oct. 1 it will build a processing plant that is able to crush 850,000 tonnes of canola a year outside Camrose.
“This is a commitment for many, many years,” said Cargill president Len Penner.
The plant is expected to be finished for the 2014-15 harvest and is designed to crush generic and specialty canola oil.
For farmer Todd Hames, the announcement of the crushing plant is good news for canola producers across the Prairies, especially with its ability to crush specialty canola oil.
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As the harvest in southern Alberta presses on, a broker said that is one of the factors pulling feed prices lower in the region. Darcy Haley, vice-president of Ag Value Brokers in Lethbridge, added that lower cattle numbers in feedlots, plentiful amounts of grass for cattle to graze and a lacklustre export market also weighed on feed prices.
“With a specialty oil line, it’s going to help expand that opportunity. That’s one of the great opportunities canola has as an advantage over our competition is specialty oils,” said Hames, president of the Canadian Canola Growers Association.
Ken Stone, Cargill’s manager of Oilseed Processing and Merchandising said Camrose was also selected because both Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway lines run through Camrose. Rail lines will be built to connect the facility to both rail lines.
“This happens to be a piece of land between two major railways. It gives us good rail and road access,” said Stone of Winnipeg.
Mark Stonacek, president of Cargill’s Grain and Oilseed Supply Chain, North America, said:” We have a belief that canola will continue to be a competitive crop for Canada and we thought there was an opportunity for more value added processing here in Canada.”
