In short, the prioritization of agricultural shipments is not good news because the Argentine economy needs to export with greater added value and, furthermore, the price per ton of soybeans is far from that of oil. Yesterday in the Chicago market, the oilseed closed around US$621.15, while oil stood at US$1,753 per ton. In turn, the flour trades below the unprocessed grain and closed at US$468.81.
As explained by CIARA-CEC, a chamber that brings together the main agro-exporters operating in Argentina, in the first four months of the year, Argentine producers considerably lowered sales of soybeans and, on the contrary, sold more corn and wheat. That is why the industry faces a high idle capacity and a marked drop in the crushing of the oilseed.
One thing to keep in mind is that despite high international prices, those producers who do not need to make sales outside the harvest prefer to keep soybeans as a refuge for value, also in a context in which the official exchange rate it is still far behind inflation, but the situation is also being complicated in full harvest.
“In this new 2021-22 harvest, in the April-May period, producer sales reached the lowest comparative level of these last three harvests, of 12.7 million tons. The fall in soybean sales reached 14.3 million tons compared to the immediately previous harvest. This is the best example that confirms, on the one hand, the lower soybean harvest this campaign, estimated at 42 million tons, the impact of the drought that reduced sales by producers, and lastly, the government’s decision to increase the retentions of soybean meal and oil that generated uncertainty among producers and slowed down their sales of soybeans”, they say from the oil industry.
Another factor that had a negative influence was the lowering of the Paraná River and the carriers’ strike that complicated the loading of ships destined for export for several days. In this framework, according to CIARA-CEC, in the first quarter of the year, just over 8 million tons were milled, which marked a drop of 1.3 million tons compared to the same quarter of 2021 (9.477 million tons). , equivalent to a fall of 14.7%. “We are in the third worst grinding volume since 2016, the year when the grinding record was reached for a first quarter, 10.3 million tons. This drop in milling is equivalent to a drop in production and exports of 250,000 tons of oil (equivalent to US$121 million) and 1 million tons of soybean meal (equivalent to US$1,959 million). In other words, Argentina lost a total of US$2,080 million”, they explain.
Source: Ambito
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