-NOPA May soybean crush slightly lower than expected
-NOPA May soybean oil stocks slightly lower than expected
NOPA reported its members crushed 163.5 million bushels of soybeans in May, slightly less than average market expectations of 165.1 million bushels and down 6.1 million bushels (3.6%) from last year’s 169.6 million, reflecting the 4th consecutive month of demand rationing relative to year ago levels. Specifically, NOPA members crushed 657.0 million bushels of soybeans during Feb-May vs 689.0 million during the same period last year, a 4.6% (32 million bushels) rationing job. Based on the recent relationship between NOPA and U.S.-total crush, nationwide May soybean crush would be implied at roughly 173.3 million bushels vs 179.6 million last year, putting 2020/21 marketing year to date crush at 1.644 billion bushels vs 1.628 billion last year. Based on the USDA’s 2.175 billion bushel annual crush estimate, June-August crush would need to total 531 million bushels, down only 1% from last year’s 536 million, but, again, crush over the last four months has run 4.6% below year ago levels, indicating the USDA’s annual estimate would still be too high if crush runs any less than 1% below year ago during the final three months of the year. For reference, if June-August crush continues to run 4.6% below last year, 2020/21 annual crush would end up at 2.156 billion bushels, another 19 million bushels below the USDA’s current estimate.
NOPA reported its members produced 1.932 billion pounds of soybean oil in May vs 1.890 billion in April and 1.958 billion pounds last year, with the average soybean oil yield ticking up the 2nd highest on record for the month at 11.82 pounds/bushel from 11.79 in April and remaining well above last year’s May yield of 11.54 pounds/bushel. NOPA members have averaged a 11.73 pound/bushel soybean oil yield so far in 2020/21 vs 11.53 during the same period last year.
With the slightly lower-than-expected crush, it is of no surprise NOPA members’ end May soybean oil stocks of 1.671 billion pounds were also slightly below average expectations of 1.713 billion pounds, slipping from April’s 1.702 billion and solidly below last year’s 1.880 billion. While certainly lower than average in the big picture, NOPA May soybean oil stocks were well within the range of stocks over the last four years of 1.581-1.880 billion pounds and “only” 7.2% below average stocks for the month over the last 7 years of 1.801 billion pounds. Moreover, implied soybean oil “off-take” (last month’s stocks + this month’s production – this month’s stocks) among NOPA members in May of 1.964 billion pounds was little-changed from 1.959 billion in April and solidly below last year’s 2.188 billion pounds, reflecting the 3rd of the last 4 months in which implied SBO off-take was below year ago levels.
NOPA reported its members produced 3.894 million tons of soybean meal in May vs 3.819 million in April and 3.995 million tons last year May and exported 714k tons of soybean meal in May vs 689k in April and 777k tons last year May.
