Bolivia faces soybean industrialization with construction of new plant

On Thursday, October 6, the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, announced that the country faces the industrialization of soybean to produce oil, flour, and derivatives, with the start of construction of the Soybean By-products Transformation Plant, in the department of Santa Cruz (east) of the country.

In the public act of inauguration of works, the president said that this plant, one of the first of its kind in the Andean Amazonian nation, will work with “high technological quality” and is located in the municipality of San Julian, about 170 kilometers from the city of Santa Cruz.

“We said we would industrialize the country in different areas. In San Julián, also with this important complex of great size and high technological quality, we are facing the industrialization of soybean,” he highlighted.

This new state-owned industry will produce oil (refined and crude), hulls, flour, and other grain derivatives, commonly sold as raw material.

According to data from the Ministry of Productive Development and Plural Economy, the Soybean By-products Transformation Plant will depend on the state-owned Food Production Support Company (Emapa) and will be built with financing of BOB 424.4 million (US$61 million).

It will be installed on 55,000 square meters, process 330,000 tons of soybeans annually, and produce 246,000 tons of soybean cake (solvent meal), 16,000 tons of hulls, and 59,000 tons of crude oil.

The president specified that the new factory would have a processing capacity of 1,000 tons of soybean per day.

Therefore, he persuaded the region’s producers to increase the planting and harvesting of this grain, which, in his opinion, would contribute to food security.

In turn, the Minister of Productive Development and Plural Economy, Néstor Huanca Chura, considered the event historic because it opened the industrialization in the soybean sector.

“By industrializing soybeans, we guarantee the supply of soybean cake and soybean hulls to the livestock sector,” he said.

In addition, he said that the crude oil produced will be used to produce ecological diesel.

The minister explained that the plant in San Julián would be complemented with silos in the region that have a capacity of 48,000 tons of grain storage, such as wheat, corn, and rice, aimed at ensuring food security.

With information from Xinhua