November 3, 2010

Brazil's late soy harvest to boost US exports

Late soy seeding in Brazil due to adverse planting weather will delay the harvest in the country and bolster US exports of the oilseed, said the vice chairman of Archer Daniels Midland, Tuesday (Nov 2).

"We're seeing very strong export interest business out of the US starting with the last month and we expect that to keep going forward. The Brazilian crop, with too much rain in some areas and not enough rain in other areas, the crop is being delayed a little bit so we should see the export interest out of the US go a little longer this year than normal," said John Rice, ADM's vice chairman and executive vice president of commercial and production.

Soy exports from the US normally are heavily concentrated in the first half of the September-August marketing year while South American exports tend to dominate from March forward.

Dry weather in Brazil, delayed soy seeding in key areas such as top soy state Mato Grosso by up four weeks this year so supplies may not be available for export as early as in past years.

US corn exports remain competitive in the world market despite the recent surge in prices, although some export sales have been lost to competing suppliers, Rice said, without identifying the competing exporters.

"We are competitive in the world on corn exports right now, but there are other areas of the world that are taking some of our corn export sales. Right now it looks like we could have a fairly tight corn balance sheet here by the end of the year," Rice said.

Meanwhile, demand for US ethanol is strong, helped by good demand for exports of the corn-based biofuel.