Global Bioenergy Industry News
Fire at Soybean Biodiesel Plant
The fire was spotteed on Saturday evening, when employees saw smoke in a soybean oil and biodiesel loading area at Minnesota Soybean Processors and immediately informed the Brewster Fire Department.
The plant is a 2,300 membership cooperative that owns and operates a soybean processing and soy methyl ester plant in Brewster, Minnesota.
The company employs about 70 people with an annual payroll of approximately $3.5 million and processes some 35 million bushels of locally-grown soybeans each year.
A spokesman for the coop said that time coded security films of the area of tghe fire clearly show that smoke appeared just a few minutes before to the emergency notification.
"The Brewster Fire Department responded in a timely and professional manner, and they were assisted by a number of area fire departments and law enforcement agencies to secure the area and to address the emergency. Minnesota Soybean Processors is grateful for their successful execution of emergency measures," said the company.
"The fire was limited to an area involved exclusively with the storage of and loading out of finished soybean oil and soy biodiesel.
"No explosion occurred and no injuries resulted. The involved area was well away from production facilities and well away from the grain elevator portion of the facility.
"Damage was limited to soybean oil and biodiesel load out equipment, to the insulation on a biodiesel storage tank and to a soybean oil storage tank. Since the event occurred during a holiday weekend evening, only six employees were on site, no load out activity was occurring in the load out area and no employees were in the area of the fire.
"In response the processing plant and biodiesel plant were shut down and secured and the employees evacuated. Production is expected to resume later this week and no layoffs of personnel are expected.
"As a precaution, the Chief and Assistant Chief of the Brewster Fire Department made the decision to request evacuation of the residents in Brewster."
TheBioenergySite News Desk
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