ADM and Marathon Form JV to Produce Soybean Oil at ADM’s $350M Spiritwood Facility

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Marathon Petroleum have formed a joint venture to produce soybean oil to meet the rapidly growing demand for renewable diesel fuel.

Under the terms of the agreement, ADM will own 75 percent of the new business, with Marathon owning the remaining 25 percent, with the new company owning and operating ADM’s previously announced $350 million soybean processing site in Spiritwood, North Dakota. Once completed in 2023, the Spiritwood facility will source and process soybeans from local growers, and will then supply the resulting soybean oil exclusively to Marathon.

When fully online for the 2023 harvest, the Spiritwood complex will have the capacity to process 150,000 bushels of soybeans per day, and is expected to produce about 600 million pounds of refined soybean oil per year, or enough to act as feedstock for the production of approximately 75 million gallons of renewable diesel fuel annually.

The announcement of this plan follows ADM’s most recent earnings report that indicated that the increased usage of vegetable oils as feedstock for biofuels in the transportation industry boosted its Q2 earnings, keeping the company invested in the activity. In addition to this venture, ADM and Marathon anticipate that they will be working together on additional future projects that use agriculture in support of renewable transport fuel production.

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