USDA lowered its forecast for global oilseed production, especially the US soybean crop, which supported quotes

The USDA has lowered its global oilseed production forecast for 2024/25 MY, reducing soybean and rapeseed production estimates while increasing cotton and sunflowers. This has led to an increase in Chicago soybean futures and rapeseed futures in Paris and Winnipeg. The global ending stocks for rapeseed have been raised due to a decrease in domestic consumption and an increase in opening stocks. The global sunflower production and consumption forecasts have also been increased, with expected support for sunflower and palm oil prices due to a significant increase in soybean oil quotes.

In the January supply and demand report, USDA experts lowered the forecast for world oilseed production in 2024/25 MY by 3 million tons to 680.35 million tons (657 million tons in 2023/24 MY), in particular soybeans - by 2.88 million tons, rapeseed - by 1 million tons, which is offset by an increase in cotton production by 0.7 million tons and sunflowers by 0.18 million tons. Compared to December estimates, the new world soybean balance for 2024/25 MY has undergone the following changes: Based on the report, January soybean futures in Chicago increased by 2.1% to $372.4/ton (+1.9% compared to data after the release of the December report). Additionally, the quotation was supported by the decrease in soybean stocks in the USA (as of December 1) to 84.3 million tons, which is 3 million tons lower than analysts' estimates and only 2.7 million tons higher than last year's figure. The forecast for world rapeseed production in the 2024/25 MY was reduced by 1.01 to 85.17 (89.69) million ...