Ferriday Oil and Seed nears business opening
Published Tuesday, July 26, 2005
FERRIDAY, La. - Ferriday Oil and Seed is in business, or very nearly so.
Workers at the new plant in the Ferriday Industrial Park were testing the equipment Thursday to make sure everything is set up correctly in anticipation of going into full production next week.
"We're getting close," Plant Manager Gary Thornton said. "We have one storage bin full (of soybeans) and we're going to fill another one soon."
Thornton also manages a construction company in Baton Rouge and a grain elevator in Winnsboro, La., that will provide storage for the soybean plant.
The plant will process soybeans into biodiesel fuel and soy meal. Biodiesel fuel can be used in place of conventional diesel fuel in vehicles. Soy meal is widely used for animal feed, particularly for dairy cattle.
At full capacity the plant will process about 3,000 bushels of soybeans each day, Thornton said. The plant will have enough on and off-site storage - enough to hold 500,000 bushels of soybeans - to keep enough soybeans to operate the machinery year-round.
Beans are first cleaned in a large mechanical wash unit, then moved into more machines that mash the beans and extrude the oil. The oil goes into large tanks and the leftover bean paste is packaged for use as animal feed, Thornton said.
There are still a number of additions to be made, including paving the road to the plant and finishing out the office space on site, but the plant's first oil should be made today. That comes after months of various delays, including dealing with rain that caused some phases of construction to last much longer than they should have.
The will also provide jobs for as many as 20 local residents, several of which are already on staff.
Vidalia resident Mike Graves got a job at the plant doing construction and will continue working on the equipment once the plant is open.
Graves worked at the Natchez International Paper plant for 22 years before its closing.
"These are good people to work with," Graves said. "I came in looking for a production job, but when they saw my background in carpentry and welding I came on for the construction phase as well."
At IP, he worked in the machine room, controlling the flow of pulp product, something he thinks will be similar to working with the machinery for the soybeans.
"I think (my experience) will help here," Graves said.
Ferriday resident Ernest Whitehead, who has worked for the past year building the plant and will continue working there once the plant is operational, lives just a few hundred yards from the factory and rides his bicycle to work each day.
"I'm ready to make some soy soil," Whitehead said. "We've had a year of putting stuff up and taking stuff down. I'm ready to see it work."