March 19, 2004

CBOT Soybean Futures Up As Delays Hit Brazil's Paranagua Port
 
CBOT soybean futures moved closer to $10 per bushel partly due to massive delays at Brazil's Paranagua port, according traders.
 
Authorities at Paranagua, Brazil's main grain port, accused soy exporters of blocking up the port in an attempt to break its policy of banning genetically modified soybeans.
 
According to Eduardo Requiao, superintendent of the Paranagua port authority, it would take control of scheduling ship loading and truck arrivals, if exporters don't start using the port to full capacity.
 
Soy export officials rejected the allegation that an embargo was being organized.
 
"That's an absurd idea. We have to pay $50,000 for every day a ship is late....Nobody can afford that kind of protest," said Sergio Mendes, president of the Brazilian Cereal Exporters Association, or ANEC.
 
According to Edson Cesar Aguiar, president of the Paranagua port operators union, low shiploading levels at a couple of quays were due to operational problems, not a slowdown.
 
Only three soybean ships have loaded at the port this week out of 33 ships waiting for grains in the bay as waiting times have jumped to 25 days even before the bulk of Brazil's potentially record soybean crop has approved at port.
 
Parana banned the export of GMO soybeans despite a federal decision to free the planting and the sale of GMOs this year. Soybean trucks are tested at port and rejected if tests prove positive.
 
Requiao spoke one day after exporters sent a letter to Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues requesting intervention at the port. Exporters say the delays at port are caused by testing for GMOs, uncertainty over rules and a ban on shiploading overtime.
 
According to ANEC's Mendes, exporters will be forced to take legal action in the next weeks, if federal intervention is not forthcoming.
 
He said exporters were nominating other ports to ship soybeans whenever possible and waiting for the last possible minute to load beans in the hope that the GMO ban will be overturned.
 
"Everyone knows that the Brazilian crop is full of GMOs and exporters are scared of getting their soybeans rejected," he said in a phone interview.
 
Around 300 trucks of beans have already been sent away from port for carrying traces of GMOs.
 
Requiao demanded that port operators began loading soybean ships at full capacity, of 1,500 tons per hour and stop sending trucks to port before the ship has arrived in order to reduce the line of trucks, which totaled approximately 3,000 on Wednesday afternoon.
 
If they don't comply, the port would start sending slow loaders to the back of the line of ships.
 
The lines of trucks are expected to grow from 60 kilometers over the next weeks as soybean harvesting progresses in the south of the country.
 
Truckers blocked entry to port from last night in protest at the delays.
 
Talks between representatives of the port, truck drivers and port operators is scheduled for later Thursday.
 
Meanwhile, a strike by Agriculture Ministry sanitation inspectors continues to complicate soy export operations.