Soyabean export premiums fell sharply at the US Gulf Coast on Thursday, weighed down by ample supplies and seasonally slowing demand as cheaper and freshly harvested supplies were on offer in South America, traders said. Losses in soya differentials in the US free-on-board ocean market followed similar declines in the domestic river barge market that supplies exporters at the Gulf. Farmers sold huge amounts of soyabeans in April, supplies that were now being offered in the barge market even as Brazilian export shipments continued to gain steam.
Soyabean offers for June loadings were seen as 30 cents per bushel above Chicago Board of Trade futures, down as much as 20 cents from last week. The declines also came despite better-than-expected US weekly soyabean export sales of 815,800 tonnes for the 2015/16 marketing season, above analyst estimates ranging from 400,000 to 600,000 tonnes. Export premiums for corn and wheat were largely unchanged, following weekly export sales results that came in near the low end of trade expectations.