OREANDA-NEWS. January 3, 2012. Oleg Deripaska's Basic Element plans to invest around 400 million rubles in agriculture development in 2012, compared to 100 million rubles in 2011, Andrei Oleinik, the head of BasEl's agriculture division said.

The Kuban agriculture holding, one of BasEl's key agriculture assets, will continue construction of a farm for 60,000 pigs and a soybean processing plant, he said.

In addition, a meat processing plant with the capacity to produce 25 tonnes of meat daily will be built, he said. The project will be funded by the company's own funds and a loan from Rosselkhozbank (RTS: RSHB). Overall investment will total 800 million rubles.

The Kuban agriculture holding currently has 19,000 heads of cattle and about 30,000 pigs.

Oleinik said preparations for the soybean processing plant are being finalized and talks are being held with the bank for funding.

Kuban plans to double its land reserves in the net few years from the current 76,000 hectares to 150,000-200,000 hectares. This year increase the amount of land it owned and reduced the amount it was renting. "We will plant wheat, soybeans, sunflower seeds, sugarbeet, and we will increase the fodder crops, especially corn and perennial grass," he said, adding that this was due to the planned increase in livestock numbers.

The past year has been successful for the agriculture holding and crop yield was higher than last year. The company harvested 205,000 tonnes of grain, including 171,000 tonnes of winter wheat. Crop yield was 6.5 tonnes per hectare, he said.

The company harvested 40,000 tonnes of corn, 21,000 tonnes of sunflower seeds and 24,000 tonnes of soyabeans.

It was a record year for the sugarbeet plants. "Our plant Svoboda was able to process almost 584,000 tonnes of sugar beet and produce around 77,000 tonnes of sugar," Oleinik said.

Kuban planted winter crops on 34,400 hectares for the 2012 harvest, including 26,300 hectares for wheat. "Crops are now in good condition," he said. The company is taking steps to protect the fields from mice and other rodents, he added.

Oleinik said the company was starting to look at new projects involving bioenergy and bio-waste recycling.

The BasEl agriculture business is concentrated in Krasnodar territory. The agriculture division was established after Russian-Asian Investment Company assets were transferred to BasEl. The Russian-Asian Investment Company formerly managed various Deirpaska assets.