USSEC held the first Maghreb Refining short course and one-on-one workshop in Morocco from November 13 - 15. Seventeen participants from all refineries in market and four from Tunisia learned how to improve soybean oil yield and quality in refining.
USSEC Regional Director – European Union / Middle East North Africa (EU/MENA) Brent Babb opened the short course, highlighting the importance of Maghreb customers for the U.S. Soy industry. Local USSEC consultant K. Benabdeljelil finalized the program and escorted experts in their visits.
Morgan Haas, FAS Agricultural Attaché for Morocco and Tunisia Resident in U.S. Embassy – Rabat, welcomed participants and thanked them for using U.S. Soy products.
USSEC consultant Brent Harold German emphasized how to improve optimization parameters of refining process to obtain better soybean oil quality and how to increase yield by reducing oil losses in waste products. Addressing customers’ issues and market specificities, the visiting expert presented the latest benchmarking data on how to produce high quality soybean oil.
Darren Little, director of sales and business development of oils and fats at Arysdine Systems, covered the latest in cavitation mixing
The team visit to Lesieur Cristal and Savola Morocco refining plants and the workshops held with key managers and technicians within each refinery discussed quality control parameters required for every refining step. The importance of U.S. soybean oil was highlighted and differential advantages of crude U.S. soybean oil were emphasized such as lower refining losses and use of chemicals, insured quality, and logistics, which contribute to a higher quality end product.
USSEC consultants’ visits to refining companies contributed to increase knowledge of U.S. Soy quality and provide an improved understanding of U.S. Soy products’ value compared to other origins. Maghreb, where soybean oil is the predominant vegetable oil, remains the largest market place for soybean oil consumption in MENA region.
The USSEC event, the first of its kind in the Maghreb region, was an opportunity to insist on the quality of US soy oil and the lower cost of its refining as compared to soy oils from other origins.