First solar-powered soy oil plant in the Americas opens in Argentina

The first “green” soybean oil production plant in the Americas, 100% powered with solar energy and without waste or the use of chemical solvents, was inaugurated in the town of San Andrés de Giles, northwest of Buenos Aires, on Thursday.

The 16,000 ft² plant, powered by 412 photovoltaic panels, was developed not by one of Argentina's large agro-industrial conglomerates (most of them owned by U.S., European, or Chinese interests) - but by Rumará, a locally-owned and women-owned medium firm.

“It is the first industrial plant in America that will produce soybean oil from renewable energy,” Industry Secretary José Ignacio de Mendiguren, 72, exulted. “It's a project led by women, which adds value, industrializes rural areas and boosts the countryside, and transforms a product of 500 dollars a ton into one of 1,600 dollars a ton.”

Financed by the Argentine Development Bank (BICE) and the CreAr subsidized business credit program, the plant has a milling capacity of 250 tons of soybeans daily - equivalent to 95,000 tons a year.

Currently, the firm works with 22,000 owned and leased acres of prime Pampas land, has 40 employees and sells mainly to the domestic market. The new plant, however, will allow them to begin exporting.

Green soybean oil, which was registered under the Oil Green brand, is the first to be produced based on renewable and clean energy. In addition, production does not generate waste and no solvents are used in the preparation of the product.

Argentina is the world's fourth-largest soy oil producer, and the top exporter - earning $7 billion for the hard currency-strapped country last year alone (nearly 8% of goods exports).

At: https://euro.eseuro.com/trends/557309.html

Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa (center-left, with blue tie) and Industry Secretary José Ignacio de Mendiguren (center-right, with green tie) headline the opening of the first first “green” soybean oil plant Argentina - and in the Americas - on Thursday.

Massa described the plant, developed by one of the few women-owned agroindustrial firms in the country, as “what Argentines can do if we align the work of the State with the will, the desire for investment, the capacity, the talent, the creativity of the private sector - and above all the entrepreneurial vocation of Argentines.”

Massa, 51, is running for president on the ruling, center-left Union for the Homeland ticket - whose chances have been throttled by 114% inflation and a record drought that has tightened hard-currency access in severely-indebted nation of 46 million.