Soybeans rise to 10-month high after record crush in US mills

MELBOURNE: Soybeans extended their climb to the highest level in more than 10 months after a report showed record demand from US mills, boosting concern that supplies from the world’s second-biggest exporter would be reduced. Soybeans for July delivery rose as much as 0.8 per cent to $15.2025 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Thursday, the highest price for a most-active contract since June 6. Futures were at $15.155 by 6:53 am local time, rising for a fourth day and taking this year’s increase to 17 per cent.

Processors crushed 153.84 million bushels in March, up 12 per cent from a year earlier and the most for the month since at least 1998, the National Oilseed Processors Association reported on April 15. Domestic stockpiles at the end of August will be 135 million bushels, less than the 145 million bushels forecast in March and below 141 million last year, the US Department of Agriculture said last week.

Soybean prices are “supported by worsening tightness in US soybean supplies,” Luke Mathews, a commodity Strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note. Slightly better-than-expected Chinese economic data has also supported “improved sentiment within the oilseed market and helped traders turn a blind eye to recent reports of Chinese soybean cancellations” and defaults, he said.

Importers in China, the biggest buyer, may default on as much as 2 million tonne of shipments, according to the US Soybean Export Council’s Beijing office. The country’s gross domestic product rose 7.4 per cent in the first quarter, government data showed last week.