The USDA has tinkered with a handful of its 2023-24 US soybean demand estimates, with the bottom line being relatively hefty increase in ending stocks.
Thursday’s monthly supply-demand update raised projected soybean ending stocks for the current marketing year to 340 million bu, up 25 million from last month. That easily topped the average pre-report trade estimate of 319 million and is now more than 28% above last year’s stocks of 264 million.
Futures were trading about 4 cents lower following the report’s release.
The biggest change from last month was a 20-million bu reduction in the 2023-24 export forecast, which falls to 1.7 billion bu - down from 1.992 billion a year earlier. Seed use was revised marginally lower, down 2 million bu to 100 million, while the residual number was cut to 13 million bu from 22 million in March.
On the other hand, the USDA did lower its 2023-24 soybean import forecast by 5 million bu from last month to 25 million bu.
The 2023-24 crush estimate was left steady at 2.3 billion bu.
As with corn, the USDA left its Brazil soybean production estimate unchanged from last month at 155 million tonnes. That is sharply higher than the latest estimate from Brazilian crop agency Conab, which earlier today slightly lowered its projection to 146.52 million tonnes from 146.85 million in March. The average trade guess for Brazil’s soy crop going into today’s report was 152.3 million tonnes.
The USDA also left its Argentina soybean production untouched from last month at 50 million tonnes, versus the average trade guess of 50.4 million.
Meanwhile, the USDA did raise its estimate of the 2023-24 Paraguay soybean crop by 200,000 tonnes from last month to 10.5 million.
World soybean ending stocks for 2023-24 are estimated at 114.22 million tonnes this month, little changed from 114.27 million in March and above the average pre-report trade estimatet of 113.8 million. World soybean ending stocks in 2022-23 amounted to 101.31 million tonnes.
The US season-average soybean price for 2023-24 is forecast at $12.55/bu, down a dime from last month and below the previous year’s $14.20. Soybean meal and oil prices are unchanged this month at $380/short ton and 49 cents/lb, respectively.
