According to forecasts, the harvest in 2020 will reach the level of 4.2 million tons, and exports will exceed 1.5 million tons.
Over the past two years, Russia has significantly increased supplies of soybeans abroad: from January to June 2020 alone, the volume of shipments increased 1.7 times compared to the same period last year and amounted to 596 thousand tons.
In value terms, the increase is even higher: it grew 1.9 times, and, as a result, the total amount of supplies amounted to 198 million dollars.
Taking into account the arrival of the new crop, Russian exports can break the record of 2018 (then the volume of shipments amounted to 964 thousand tons).
If we talk about the first half of 2020, 12 countries bought Russian soybeans.
70% of supplies went to China and Belarus — traditional sales markets.
About half of the total volume was shipped to China: this year it has already purchased 312 thousand tons worth $ 92 million.
In China, they began to restore the pig population, and, according to forecasts, the volume of purchases compared to the 2019-2020 marketing year may increase by 3% and reach 100 million tons.
So far, Russia’s share in Chinese soybean imports is only 1%. Nevertheless, the growing demand for soybeans from the Middle Kingdom will affect both world prices and the market as a whole.
According to the World Bank, the cost of soybeans in the world by the end of the year will grow by 5% to $ 390 per ton, and next year it will continue to grow, adding another 3% to $ 400 per ton.
The Russian market is likely to support the global trend of rising prices, and by the end of the year we will observe the level of 30,000 rubles, which may grow by another 5-10% next year.
The second country that has a significant percentage of Russian soybean exports is Belarus.
From January to June 2020, it purchased 131 thousand tons worth $ 48 million, showing a significant increase over the previous year.
The country is increasing production capacity for processing oilseeds.
After processing, a part of the cake is returned to Russia in the form of soybean meal and is used in the production of compound feed.
Turkey ranks third in terms of the volume of exported beans: 58 thousand tons worth $ 21 million. The country has increased the volume of purchases from Russia by 6 times.
The geographical location of Russian soybean production regions also determines the direction of exports from them: the regions of the Far Eastern and Siberian districts provide supplies to China, and the regions of the European part export raw materials to Belarus, the Middle East and Kazakhstan.
The main region in terms of sown area is the Amur Region. It accounts for 30% of Russian crops.
If you look across the country as a whole, the largest plantings are located in the Far Eastern and Central districts.
This is followed by Primorsky Krai, Kursk and Belgorod regions (9% of crops each).
5-6% falls on the Krasnodar and Altai Territories, Voronezh and Tambov Regions.
Domestic production may compete with importing countries in the near future, the growth of which will lead to the redistribution of part of the export crop for consumption by domestic producers.
To date, several investment projects have already been announced that will expand existing and build new soybean processing plants.
In the future, they will increase capacity by 2.5 million tons to 3.8 million tons per year.
The introduction of new capacities and the expansion of existing ones should result in a further increase in soybean oil exports: in January-June 2020, 384 thousand tons worth $ 282 million were exported (49% more than in the same period last year).
