Analysts forecast soybean price drop

Soybeans fell to the lowest price since July on speculation that warm weather might produce a record harvest in the United States, the world's biggest grower and exporter.

Twenty of 35 traders and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News said soybeans would drop this month as warm weather speeds US crop development.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) raised its output forecast to a record 3.245 billion bushels on Sept 11, from 3.199 billion bushels a month earlier.

"It's basically just an unwinding of that risk" of frost damaging US crops, said Ben Barber, a futures adviser at Bell Commodities Ltd. "When the new crop starts to come in, you've got a lot of supply pressures."

Soybeans prices for November delivery, after the US harvest, fell as much as 1.1 percent to $8.93 a bushel, the lowest for the most-active contract since July 17.

The USDA also raised its global production forecast for the 2009-2010 marketing year to 243.94 million metric tons on Sept 11, from 242.07 million tons a month earlier. That's 16 percent higher than the 210.72 million tons harvested by producers a year earlier, it said.

Soybeans for January delivery traded at $9.04 a bushel, the fourth straight decline.

Oil World Executive Director Thomas Mielke and John Baize, president of agricultural trade consulting firm John C. Baize and Associates, said earlier this month that, as global demand grows, soybean exporters in the United States have sold as much as they can physically ship in the first months of the harvest.

US exporters sold 16.9 million tons of soybeans as of Sept 3, of which 10.2 million tons were bought by China for delivery in the marketing year that began Sept 1, the USDA reported on Sept 11.

Total sales were more than double the 8.03 million tons in the same period a year earlier, the USDA said.

Still, imports by China, the world's biggest soybean user, might slow if its trade dispute with the United States escalates, Hiroyuki Kikukawa, general manager of research at IDO Securities Co, said by phone from Tokyo.

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 09/28/2009 page5)