May 24, 2006

Argentina's March soy crush up 18 percent on-year

Argentina's soybean crush totalled 2,267,059 tonnes in March, up almost 18 percent from 1,924,887 a year earlier, the latest Agriculture Secretariat data show.

Argentina produced 433,050 tonnes of soyoil in March, up 16.2 percent from the 372,559 tonnes crushed a year ago.

Soy pellet output in March totalled 1,768,485 tonnes, up about 19 percent more than the 1,484,797 tonnes crushed a year earlier.

Analysts expect crush to keep rising over the next couple of years as soybean production rises and crushers boost processing capacity to accompany the bigger harvests.

The 2004/05 harvest totalled a record 39 million tonnes, up from 33 million tonnes a year ago, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The USDA has pegged the 2005/06 crop at 40.5 million tonnes.

Aceitera General Deheza, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus and other companies are spending upward of US$800 million to build ports and boost daily crush capacity to around 160,000 tonnes by 2007. Daily capacity now totals about 132,000 tonnes, according to the Rosario Cereals Exchange.

By the end of 2006, Argentina could be crushing more than 40 million tonnes of oilseed annually, according to an estimate by the Exchange's department of economic studies.