December 5, 2007

Brazil lowers soy outlook, soy crushing down

Brazil's soy crushing industry lowered its outlook for the 2007/08 (Oct/Sept) soy crop to 60.5 million tonnes from 60.7 million tonnes in October, the Vegetable Oils Industry Association (Abiove) said on Tuesday (Dec 4, 2007).

Abiove's lowered forcast was in line with lower forecasts by government and private analysts.

The lower crop was mainly due to delays in planting caused by late rains in some of Brazil's main soy producing areas.

This was Abiove's second forecast for the season. If realised, the new estimate would be a 2-percent increase over the soy crop in 2006/07, which amounted to 59.3 million tonnes.

Brazil's October soy crush of 2.32 million tonnes was 3.7 percent down from 2.41 million tonnes in September.

The figure was also 11 percent down from the 2.61 million tonnes seen in October 2006.