USDA Oilseed Crush Report Preview: Soybean crush likely to fall to 5.26 million st in February

WASHINGTON, March 31: The U.S. Department of Agriculture is to release its monthly oilseed processing report on Friday. Analysts on average expect U.S. soybean crush to fall to 5.257 million short tons, or 175.2 million bushels, in January 2022, according to a survey.

If this expectation materializes, it would be a five-month low of 194.3 million bushes in January 2022, but higher than the 164.3 million bushes crushed in February 2021, and only down from February 2020’s 164.3 million bushels the second-highest record for the same period in history.

Analysts’ forecasts ranged from 173.7 million bushels to 177.0 million bushels, with a median of 175.0 million bushels.

For comparison, the member companies of the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) crushed 165.057 million bushels of soybeans in February, a decrease of 9.4% month-on-month, but an increase of 6.4% year-on-year, the second highest in history. The soybeans processed by NOPA member companies account for about 95% of the country’s total.

U.S. soybean crush profits were $3.98 a bushel in the week ended Feb. 24, up 154 ​​percent from a year earlier, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s March supply and demand report forecast the 2021/22 U.S. soybean crush forecast to be 2.215 billion bushels, unchanged from the February forecast and 3.5% higher than the 2020/21 crush of 2.141 billion bushels.