PARIS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Global crop merchant Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) will build a new soybean processing plant in the U.S. state of Ohio, it said on Friday, adding to a boom in oilseed crush investments in North America encouraged by biofuel use.
LDC will start construction in early 2024 on the future facility in Upper Sandusky that will have an annual soy crushing capacity of 1.5 million metric tons, the company said in a statement.
The site will have an edible soybean oil production capacity of 320,000 metric tons per year and annual lecithin production capacity of 7,500 metric tons, it said.
LDC did not indicate when the plant was expected to be completed or how much it would cost.
In a separate statement, the Regional Growth Partnership, a local economic development group, said LDC will invest $500 million in the facility.
LDC said the site will allow it to serve food, livestock feed and biofuel markets.
U.S. soybean crush capacity may swell by as much as 30% over the next three years, largely to supply new renewable diesel production facilities with vegetable oil to make the biofuel.
Archer Daniels Midland, another global crop merchant, opened one of the first newly constructed plants this autumn in North Dakota in a partnership with oil company Marathon.
LDC earlier this year said it will more than double the size of its Canadian canola crushing plant in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. (Reporting by Gus Trompiz, additional reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
