UPDATE: As of 8:20 Thursday morning, Louis Dreyfus in Claypool is now fully open for soybean receiving.
The largest fully integrated soybean processing and biodiesel plant in the United States, located in Kosciusko County in northern Indiana dealt with a fire this week. Tuesday night there was a fire at Louis Dreyfus Company in Claypool in a bag house. Soybean receiving was canceled Wednesday as operations were suspended.
In a statement LDC said no employees were injured. The fire was out by 10:15 p.m. Eastern time, and Leah Sander, Multimedia Journalist for InkFreeNews.com said the fire was not as bad as initially feared.
“From talking with Claypool Fire Department’s Chief Rick Hurley, they had a lot of fire departments respond to it, but it was just as a backup because they didn’t know how bad it was, and once they got there it wasn’t as bad as they thought it was.”
Hurley told Sander the fire was in the plant’s baghouse, a five-story building on the southeast side of the property where “dry beans go in and are conveyed to other buildings.” He described it as a “large dusty area.”
Sander’s sources confirm there were no employee or firefighter injuries, she reports Chief Hurley said the fire was under control by 8:30 p.m.
Still yet to be determined are the cause of the fire, the extent of damage and its cost. LDC says it is an incident under investigation.
Soybean futures were strong Wednesday, and some analysts say the LDC fire and closure played a role in that. Analyst Arlan Suderman at StoneX disagrees, for now.
“That’s certainly significant for the local area, but until we see that it’s going to be an extended downtime, I think what the market is actually trading is South American weather.”
HAT was told Wednesday there was still a solid line of trucks full of soybeans at LDC waiting on the re-opening.
