WASHINGTON, September 23 (RIA Novosti) – US agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. has begun construction of a $200 million sunflower oil crushing plant in Russia’s southern Volgograd region, and plans to have it operational by the 2015 harvest, the company has announced.
The plant in the town of Novoanninskiy will process up to 640,000 tonnes (705,479 tons) of sunflower seeds each year, and will service Cargill’s food and feed industry customers in Russia and internationally, according to the Minneapolis-based company.
Andreas Rickmers, head of Cargill’s grain and oilseeds business in Europe said in the official announcement released last week that the new plant was part of a strategy “…to focus on the growth and development of our offering to farmers in Russia.”
Founded in 1865, Cargill is one of the world’s largest privately held corporations and is the biggest in the United States in terms of revenue, according to the most recent list compiled by Forbes.com.
Cargill says it opened its first representative office in Moscow in 1991 although a prior trading relationship with Russian-based organizations dates back 30 years. Today it employs 2,700 people in the country and 140,000 in 65 countries worldwide.
