- Bloomberg reported that soybean inventory at the major ports in China stood at 4.5mil tonnes in the week ended 18 May 2015 versus 5.8mil tonnes in the same period last year. China National Grain and Oils Information Center said that the country’s soybean imports are expected to exceed seven million tonnes monthly in May and June 2015 as crushing activities improve.

- Incidentally, China’s soybean production is expected to fall for the fifth year in a row to 11.2mil tonnes. In comparison, the country’s soybean output was 12mil tonnes last year. The decline in soybean production was due to a fall in planted areas in China.

- Officials at USDA (US Department of Agriculture) said that soybean prices could plunge if political reforms in Argentina spur farmers to release soybean from the reserves. Argentina’s elections are expected to be held in October this year. USDA said that the soybean reserves would increase to an estimated 32mil tonnes by October 2015, representing 37% of the world’s inventory.

- The Forest Trust has suspended Golden Agri-Resources’ membership. This follows RSPO’s (Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil) recent move in barring Golden Agri from acquiring or developing new oil palm areas. The Forest Trust was Golden Agri’s partner in helping the group improve its environmental policies.

- Uralkali said that the flooding in its Solikamsk-2 mine would not be enough to reduce the oversupply in the potash market as major miners have announced plans to maintain or increase sales volume this year.

- Uralkali expects global demand for potash to decline by 6% to 8% this year from a record of 63mil tonnes last year. The group said that there has been a fall in spot prices after Belarus’ deal with China at the end of 1Q2015.

- Finally, two independent cargo surveyors said that Malaysia’s palm oil shipments surged by 48.1% and 53% respectively in the first 20 days of May compared with the same period last month.

- SGS said that China’s palm oil imports climbed by 93.6% while India received 204.4% more palm oil shipments from Malaysia. These helped offset a 60.2% fall in exports to the US in the first 20 days of May compared with the same period last month.

- Intertek said that RBD palm olein comprised 37.3% of Malaysia’s palm oil exports in the first 20 days of May while CPO accounted for another 34.8%. Exports of RBD palm olein improved by 13.4% while exports of CPO surged by 791%.

Source: AmeSecurities Research - 25 May 2015