The midweek session closed with new life of contract highs for soybeans and soybean oil. Meal futures closed the day up $1.10 to $1.90/ton, but May contracts are still $51.30 off the Jan high. Soybean oil futures closed 153 to 187 points higher. May oil printed a new LOC high, but was just shy of the April ’11 high on the continuation chart. Beans closed the session 9 3/4 to 25 1/4 cents in the black – with new highs for old and new crop contracts. Canadian Canola Prices set a new all-time high for the front month during the midweek session. European Rapeseed Futures also printed new all time highs on Wednesday, at 561 Euros/tonne.  

Ahead of USDA’s weekly Export Sales report, the trade is looking for old crop bean bookings to be less than 250k MT. The full range is from 100k MT of net cancelations to 250k MT of net sales. New crop bean bookings are estimated between 250,000 MT and 500,000 MT. For soymeal, traders estimate between 50,000 MT and 225,000 MT. Soy oil bookings are estimated to be below 25,000 MT for the week ending 4/15.

USDA’s Ag Attaché reduced their forecast for Argentine soybeans by 2.5 MMT to 45 MMT. USDA’s official April forecast was 47.5 MMT. For 21/22 the Ag Attaché sees a 100,000 HA area increase dedicated for soy production. Compounded with back to trend yields, that sets the preliminary 21/22 estimate for Argentine bean production at 51.5 MMT.

USDA’s Ag Attaché sees an increase in EU oilseed (soy, canola, sunflower, and cottonseed) area for 21/22, up almost 100k HA to 10.982 million – mostly canola and sunflower. That would increase production to 29.97 MMT and reduce oilseed imports by 1.4% yr/yr to 22.46 MMT. 

May 21 Soybeans  closed at $14.97 1/4, up 25 1/4 cents,

Jul 21 Soybeans  closed at $14.79 1/2, up 21 3/4 cents,

Nearby Cash was $14.79 5/8, up 25 1/8 cents,

Nov 21 Soybeans  closed at $13.10 1/4, up 10 3/4 cents,

New Crop Cash was $12.61 4/9, up 11 1/4 cents,