Bunge CEO: U.S. Soybean Exports Ready to Rebound in Q4

After sharing disappointing second quarter results last week, Bunge Ltd CEO, Soren Schroder, shared optimism for a fourth quarter turn-around. The poor results for the company were attributed to poor margins in Canada and Europe, as well as weak demand in Brazil. However, despite the slowest start in six years, U.S. forward sales of soybeans will pick up in Q4 2015, driven by accelerated import demand out of China, Schroder told Reuters last week.

China has been importing South American beans at record rates the past few months, and Schroder points out that China’s positive crush margins suggest import demand will remains strong. Despite significant competition from Brazilian and Argentine soy right now, he expects U.S. shipments to rebound in October and finish the 2015/16 season only slightly below 2014/15.

"Three months of record imports by China means that they're sitting on comfortable inventories and are therefore not in a hurry to go out and forward-buy a lot of beans," he said in an interview with Reuters. "But I think when we get to October, November, December, the Chinese will be there in style."