NOPA August U.S. Soy Crush Seen at 162.018 MLN Bushels -Survey

(Agriculture.com) – U.S. soybean processing plants aggressively crushed beans for a second straight month in August as facilities sought to make up for early-summer downtime that had fueled three straight months of lower-than-expected crushings, analysts said. The crush last month was expected to be down 3.6% from July, when processing volumes were the sixth largest ever, but was still likely the largest on record for August, according to analysts polled ahead of a monthly National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) report. NOPA members, which together handle about 95% of all soybeans processed in the United States, likely crushed 162.018 million bushels of soybeans last month, according to the average of estimates from nine analysts surveyed by Reuters. If realized, the crush would top the previous August record of 158.885 million bushels, set last year, but would be down from the 168.093 million bushels crushed in July. The monthly NOPA report will be released at 11 a.m. CDT (1600 GMT) on Monday. The organization releases crush data on the 15th of each month or the next business day. Crush forecasts for August ranged from 158.400 million to 169.000 million bushels, with a median estimate of 161.750 million bushels. Soyoil supplies among NOPA members at the end of August were expected to have declined for a fourth straight month to 1.410 billion pounds, based on the average of estimates from six analysts. If realized, it would the lowest end-of-month supply since November 2017. Stocks stood at 1.467 billion pounds at the end of July and 1.623 billion pounds at the end of August 2018. Estimates for soyoil stocks ranged from 1.335 billion to 1.450 billion pounds, with a median estimate of 1.424 billion.