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Analyst: China has met some purchase commitments, not all

A market analyst says the data shows China has followed through on some of its soybean purchase commitments, but not all of them.

Don Roose with U.S. Commodities tells Brownfield…

“We think that has happened, the 12 million metric ton purchase commitment,” he says. “The thing that hasn’t happened is we heard the president talk about they agreed verbally to an eight million metric ton additional. That one, as far as on our information, has not ever occurred.”

Roose says if China is going to fulfill that eight million metric ton additional buy, or purchase other U.S. ag products based on another recent deal, now would be the time to start seeing some of those sales.

“Maybe corn, although Argentina is harvesting corn now, Brazil’s about five percent harvested on corn. So the choice would probably be that they buy sorghum first, maybe corn second, and in between time buying soybeans.”

He says China purchases can shift demand sentiment in an oversupplied market.

Market analysts have been closely watching for indications China could be buying more U.S. ag products following comments from the USDA that purchases could be coming soon. So far, confirmations have been lacking.