A pair of major oilseed crushing facilities in Eastern Canada will come under new marketing management through a new joint venture between their owners.
The North American arm of New York-based agrifood giant Bunge and a Canadian arm of the Malaysian government’s FELDA agency have announced a joint venture, Bunge ETGO L.P., will now handle buying oilseeds and selling product for their crushers at Hamilton, Ont. and Becancour, Que. respectively.
Bunge and TRT-ETGO (Twin Rivers Technologies-Enterprises de Transformation de Graines Oleagineuses du Quebec), FELDA’s Quebec arm, will each continue to own and operate their respective plants, the two companies said Monday.
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The joint venture, however, will be responsible for "all commercial aspects of the business, including oilseed procurement, product sales and risk management."
Bunge ETGO will be based out of an office at Oakville, Ont., using a commercial team including staff from both companies.
TRT-ETGO plans to shut its current trading office in Montreal, however, and will relocate "a few" of its employees either to Becancour or to Oakville, TRT-ETGO’s acting CEO Wira Adam said in a release.
Bunge ETGO "will honour all open contracts," he noted.
"This joint venture creates an organization that can more effectively serve the growing demand for canola and soybean meal and oil in the domestic and export markets," Rick Watson, Bunge’s country manager in Canada, said in the same release.
"Managing the commercial aspects of both facilities as a single company provides a number of efficiencies, reducing the overall cost of running both facilities."
Each plant has a crush capacity of about 3,000 tonnes per day, which works out to a combined capacity of about two million tonnes per year.
Both plants have capability to crush either soybeans or canola.
