WA manufacturing: CBH stays quiet as Cargill reveals joint venture plan for $500m Rockingham canola project

CBH is keeping mum on speculation the grain growing cooperative is on the cusp of a deal with America’s Cargill to back a $500 million canola refinery in East Rockingham. Cargill’s development plans for the factory — which would produce 1.1 million tonnes of seed oil annually — were publicly released this week. It’s hoped the plant will support local value adding and diversify canola demand away from Europe. Documents filed by Cargill to the City of Rockingham show the two companies will be working together in a joint venture for the project, named Crux. Talks were also under way to supply BP’s stalled proposed sustainable aviation fuel plant in Kwinana. “Cargill and CBH will be entering into a joint venture for the Crux project,” the submission authored by engineers Ramboll said. “Regular consultation with CBH is conducted to ensure a co-ordinated development approach with the (grain export) terminal and its existing operations.” But CBH did not comment on whether the agreement had been inked. Cargill — which has also not commented — would benefit from access to CBH’s supply chain and wants to build the facility next to the cooperative’s existing grain export terminal. The news would put the joint venture ahead in the race against Sydney-based handlers GrainCorp’s bid to build its own oilseed refinery on the west coast. GrainCorp has been sizing up a similarly-sized project and is undertaking feasibility work. Two small refineries operate in WA but the CBH-Cargill and GrainCorp proposals will be of a much-larger scale. More than 4 million tonnes of canola was grown in WA through the 2025-26 season and the majority is shipped overseas to Europe, Japan and the Middle east. Roughly 60 per cent of Europe’s canola oil consumption is used for biofuels to cut emissions from cars.