Argentina has more soybean crushing capacity than Brazil -study

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentina has fewer soybean processing plants than Brazil, but the installed capacity of the neighboring country is more significant, shows a study by Bolsa de Rosario. Last year, the Argentineans had 35 oilseed crushing plants and the Brazilians, 85.

However, Argentina’s installed capacity is 191.23 thousand tons a day and Brazil’s, 166.77 thousand tons, said the institution’s chief economist, Bruno Ferrari, in a seminar of the Soybean Chain Association of Argentina (ACSoja) held today (9/22).

According to the survey, Brazil has an installed capacity to process 55.03 million tons of oilseed per year, while the Argentine plants can process 63.11 million. Ferrari points out, however, that there is a lot of idle capacity in his country, about 43%. In Brazil, idle capacity is 10%.

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“Despite all this Argentine capacity, in practice, Brazil processes 10 million more tons of soybeans per year,” the economist said. In 2020, Brazil processed 46.84 million tons of soybeans, according to the study, while Argentina crushed 36.06 million.

“Argentina has the challenge of increasing the use of its industry, it has room for that taking into consideration the world demand,” Ferrari said in his presentation. According to him, China, which prioritizes local processing, is the largest importer of Argentine grain ends up limiting the use of the Argentine industry.

In the study, Ferrari showed that Paraguay and Bolivia have ten crushing plants each, with very similar total processing capacity, of 12.83 thousand and 12.81 thousand tons per day, respectively. However, Paraguay has idleness of 22% and Bolivia, of 38%. Both countries processed 4.2 million tons of soybeans in 2020.

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