Argentina has today negotiated the largest soybean import from the US for 20 years. The world's third largest soybean exporter and the world's largest producer of soybean oil and soybean meal, has been suffering from a great deal of drought in recent months and now needs to import soybeans themselves in order to meet its delivery obligations for soy products.
To-day, to the surprise of market participants, USDA reported the sale of 120,000 tonnes of soybeans to Argentina for the 2018/19 marketing year, which begins on September 1st.
This is the largest sales contract of US soybeans to Argentina since December 1997.
Argentina's worst drought in decades has destroyed the local soybean crop. Analysts estimate that the Argentine soybean crop will reach 42.66 million tonnes this year in a Reuters poll just ahead of the monthly USDA WASDE report. That would be the smallest harvest in six years.
Text: HANSA Derivatives Trading GmbH /
