Businessman Santiago Blaquier confirmed the purchase of the Tucumán sugar mill La Trinidad, his third plant after Concepción and La Corona, with more than US$150 million invested. He projects crushing between 6.5 and 7 million tonnes and exporting some 200,000 tonnes of sugar.
Businessman Santiago Blaquier confirmed the purchase of the Tucumán sugar mill La Trinidad through Ingenios del Norte SA, adding his third sugarcane processing plant and becoming the country's largest processor. With this operation, the group doubles the production of Ledesma, the family-owned company from Jujuy where Blaquier trained and whose board he sat on until recently.
Ingenios de Tucumán SA announced this Thursday the acquisition of 100% of the shares of Aguilares Gas SA, owner of Ingenio Trinidad. The letter of intent for the operation had been signed last February with Ricardo Sixto Ansonnaud, main shareholder of the facility located in the Chicligasta department, and the amount would be around US$40 million.
The incorporation of La Trinidad adds to the purchases of the Concepción mill, the largest in Tucumán, completed in December 2025, and of La Corona, carried out in September 2026. With these acquisitions, Blaquier has accumulated investments of more than US$150 million in the sector and, unlike Ledesma, does not have his own fields to produce cane, but is supplied by Tucumán's cane growers.
The group, named Ingenios de Tucumán, totals a crushing volume of 5.4 million tonnes across the three factories, according to data from the Centro Azucarero Argentino for the 2025 harvest. That figure is above the 3.3 million tonnes crushed by Ledesma, in Jujuy, and also above the 4.2 million of the Tucumán group Los Balcanes, which brings together the Cruz Alta, La Florida and Aguilares mills.
"With these operations, the group consolidates an industrial project made up of the Concepción, Corona and Trinidad mills, and projects a crushing volume of between 6.5 and 7 million tonnes of cane for the next harvest," the businessman said, which would mean doubling the crushing volume of the family company where he grew up.
Ingenio Trinidad is the third-largest mill in Tucumán by crushing volume, with approximately 2.2 million tonnes of cane per harvest. With its incorporation, the company projects a joint crushing volume of between 6.5 and 7 million tonnes, out of an estimated national production of 25 million tonnes and 18 million in Tucumán alone. This would represent close to a quarter of the country's crushing and between 36% and 39% of Tucumán's crushing.
The project envisages a workforce of approximately 2,000 employees, distributed among the three industrial facilities and the agricultural team. The company plans to operate between 4,000 and 5,000 leased hectares and to have a fleet of 21 harvesters, accompanied by tractors and self-tipping carts. "One of the central commitments will be to maintain all the jobs at the Ingenio Trinidad, as happened previously with Concepción and Corona," the press release stressed.
Ingenios de Tucumán projects reaching production of approximately 650,000 tonnes of sugar equivalent during the next harvest. The group expects to export some 200,000 tonnes of sugar, sell between 200,000 and 240,000 tonnes on the domestic market and sell between 120,000 and 150,000 cubic meters of alcohol.
Along with the purchase of the mill, the group reported the acquisition of 60% of MOYCO SRL, one of the country's leading packaged sugar marketers, an operation in which Blaquier partnered with Adrián Eduardo López and Ezequiel Eleas, who will remain involved in developing the business. Its flagship brand for sugar trading is Azucel. According to the press release, "the operation will make it possible to complement the production capacity of the mills with MOYCO's commercial experience and strengthen the marketing of sugar and other mass-consumption products, improving customer service and advancing greater integration of the value chain."
In the announcement of the deal, Blaquier placed special emphasis on the relationship with cane suppliers: "Cane growers are an essential pillar of our industry and we are convinced that, for us to do well, they need to do well too. Tucumán has very important competitive advantages in sugarcane production compared with other countries, and we have to work together to take advantage of them."
"We deeply believe in Tucumán, in its people and in the potential of the Argentine sugar industry. We are convinced that we have all the conditions to build a modern, competitive industry with an ever-greater presence in international markets. But we also know that this requires a lot of work, investment, professionalism and, above all, a shared long-term vision," said Blaquier, a shareholder of the groups Ingenios de Tucumán and Ingenios del Norte SA, a company created by the businessman in November 2025.
The announcement added that "beyond the industrial scale and production volumes, one of the main challenges of the project will be to integrate the three mills under a single work culture, based on transparency, responsibility, respect for people, workplace safety, production efficiency and environmental care."
