April 20, 2007

Cargill tops soybeans crushing market in Argentina 

Argentina's new investments from soybeans and derivatives trading companies would double the country's crushing capacity from 23.8 million tonnes in 2005 to 40.8 million tonnes in 2007, as Cargill is completing a new plant at Villa Gobernador Galvez and Louis Dreyfus a plant at Tiumbues - both in Santa Fe province.

Cargill already dislodged Bunge in Argentina' soybean crushing market with 8.6 million tonnes production a year or 31.1 percent of the domestic capacity. Bunge has a crushing capacity of 6.4 million tonnes and accounts for 15.6 percent of the market.

Local companies also increased their crushing market from 36 percent to 43 percent led by fast growing being Molinos which capacity has risen from 2.3 million to 6.3 million tonnes a year or 9.5 to 15.5 percent increase in its San Lorenzo plant.  Vicentin also increased its capacity from 2.6 million to 5.6 million tonnes a year and its share from 10.9 percent to 13.9 percent of the crushing capacity.

AGD has augmented capacity from 3.7 million to 5.5 million tonnes a year, but its share decreased from 15.4 percent to 13.6 percent.