Third canola crush plant announced for Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is getting another canola crush plant, the third such plant announced for the province this spring.

This time, Ceres Global Ag Corp. has announced it will build a $350-million facility in Northgate, about 275 kilometres south of Regina, near the U.S. border.

According to a Ceresnews release, the facility will have the capacity to process 1.1 million tonnes of canola each year and create about 50 jobs. The plant will also have refining capacity for more than 500,000 tonnes of canola oil annually.

"While there are multiple drivers contributing to this demand, the most important is the movement towardgreen energy and the need for vegetable oil as feedstock for the production of renewable diesel,"Robert Day, president and CEO at Ceres,stated in the release.

The announcement by Ceres follows news last month that both Viterra and Cargill intend to build canola crushing plants inRegina.

The Cargill plant will also cost approximately $350 million and have a one million tonne annual capacity. Like the Ceres facility, the Cargill plant is predicted to employ 50 people.

Viterra's plant is still in the feasibility phase, but has a targeted capacity of 2.5 million tonnes and 100 full-time jobs.

The Ceres and Cargill plants are both scheduled to be operational by 2024.