The Prairie Premium Oil canola crushing plant in Northwood, N.D., has shut down, but only temporarily, the plant manager said Tuesday.
"We're not closed. We're just on a maintenance cycle right now," James Gorres tells Agweek.
He was uncertain when the plant will reopen.
Kent Weston, president of Prairie Premium Oil, couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.
Weston, a Sarles, N.D., farmer and the owner-operator of Weston Seed House in Sarles, is one of about 30 Prairie Premium Oil investors, most of them North Dakota canola farmers. Weston has been the primary spokesman for the plant in the past.
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The Northwood plant, which had been closed since 2009, resumed operations under new ownership and management this summer. In October, the plant employed 20 people and crushed nearly 7,000 tons of canola a month.
Most of the employees live within 30 miles of Northwood, a farm town of 950 that's 35 miles southwest of Grand Forks, N.D., plant officials told Agweek last fall.
Prairie Premium Oil ownership group once hoped to establish a new canola crushing plant in Munich, N.D. When that didn't work out, the company began investigating the defunct plant in Northwood, N.D.
