China cancels US soya purchase

January 04, 2013

RECORDER REPORT

0 Comments

China has cancelled 315,000 tonnes of soyabeans purchased from the United States, the US Department of Agriculture said on Thursday, sending soyabean prices tumbling on the Chicago Board of Trade. The USDA gave no reason for the cancellations, which follow China's scrapping of purchases totalling 840,000 tonnes in the week of December 16. Another 120,000 tonnes cancelled that week by buyers not specified by the USDA were believed by traders to have also been bought by Chinese importers.

CBOT March soyabeans were down 15 cents, or 1.1 percent, at $13.77-1/4 at 11:15 CST (1715 GMT). The soyabeans cancelled by China on Thursday were to have been delivered in the 2012/13 marketing year that ends August 31.

The cancellations by the world's top soyabean importer come amid expectations for bumper crops in Brazil and Argentina - the world's second- and third-largest soyabean exporters after the United States. The soyabean harvest in Brazil is under way and US exporters say those supplies will begin to flood the world market by late February or March at prices considerably below US prices.

US soyabeans shipped from the Gulf Coast in February and March were offered at about $559 per tonne, free on board, while late February to early March shipments at Brazil's Paranagua port were offered at about $532 per tonne, FOB, Reuters data showed. Full-month March shipments were offered at about $521 per tonne, FOB. Concerns that additional purchases could be cancelled have hung over the futures market. Chinese buyers have booked but have yet to take delivery of more than 4.8 million tonnes of US soyabeans, according to USDA data. Unshipped purchases by unknown buyers, which traders say include a sizable chunk of sales to China, totalled more than 3 million tonnes in the week that ended December 20, USDA data showed.