China's State-owned food conglomerate COFCO plans to build the largest soybean processing plant in Brazil, according to an announcement by the company. This is just one piece of a soybean crushing capacity expansion taking place across China, the U.S. and Brazil.
COFCO will more than double capacity of its plant in Rondonópolis from its current 4,500 metric tons per day to about 10,000 metric tons. The facility will be capable of processing 1.35 million metric tons of soybeans annually, to produce soybean oil, meal and 350,000 metric tons of biodiesel. The project is expected to cost about US$400 million and will be complete in 2028.
The plant is located at Rondonópolis, an agribusiness hub in Brazil's west central soybean producing region. According to the Chinese article describing the project, the expansion of crushing capacity in Brazil is expected to allow COFCO to exert greater control over the flow of soy products entering Asian markets, enhance the value of it exported products and mitigate logistical bottlenecks during the harvest season. The description said that the plant's aim is to safeguard "supply chain security."
The plant is 1,330 km from Brazil's Santos port where COFCO also is building one of the largest agricultural shipping terminals. The Rondonópolis facility reportedly has direct rail access to the Port of Santos and is connected via pipeline to nearby biodiesel distributors.
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| COFCO's Brazilian soybean crushing plant is in Rondonópolis. |
COFCO's project is one fragment of a much larger expansion of Brazilian crush capacity by multiple actors. USDA's February oilseed outlook cited data from Brazil's ABIOVE showing that daily crush capacity was 219,842 metric tons last year, up 28.5% since 2020. The west central region where the COFCO facility is located already has 45% of national crush capacity and has been the fastest growing -- up 36%. USDA estimated that crush capacity would be 76 million metric tons if operated 350 days. In April, USDA projected Brazil's soybean crush at 61.5 mmt this year.
China's crushing industry is already plagued by excess capacity and low margins. Replacing soybean exports to Brazil's largest market with soy oil and meal exports would exacerbate those problems. COFCO alone has 20 million metric tons of soybean crushing capacity in China spread over 30 facilities--the largest of any company. A 2024 article reported that China's soy crushing capacity had grown from 120 million metric tons to 140 million metric tons over 10 years and predicted that capacity could rise to 200 million metric tons per day by 2026. A futures trading company's report last year estimated that China had 135 crushing facilities with 188 million metric tons of soybean crushing capacity. The 2024 article cited annual capacity utilization rates ranging between 55% and 71% as a major challenge.
Meanwhile, the April USDA oilseeds report projected U.S. crush at a record-high 2.61 billion bushes (about 71 million metric tons) or the 2025/26 market year. USDA estimated that U.S. crush capacity is in the range of 79-to-82 million metric tons.
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