National Commodity Clearing Ltd, the clearing arm of the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange, has so far marked 16,125 tn of soybean and 15,190 tn of cottonseed oilcake for staggered delivery against the December contract, which expires on Friday.

The arm also marked a few other farm commodities for staggered delivery. Under the staggered delivery mechanism, sellers can indicate their intention for delivery during the tender period of the contract. The last five trading sessions, including the expiry day, is taken as the tender period.

Soybeans finished Thursday’s round of trading 3 1/2 to 4 1/4 cents lower. Meal futures were down by $4.50/ ton at the close. Soybean oil futures on the other hand finished in the black.

The USDA reported a private export sale of 126,000 MT of soybeans to China for a 19/20 MY delivery, confirming some of the rumored 350,000 MT of US soybean purchases by Chinese firms on Wednesday.

Soybean export bookings were just above expectations in this morning’s Export Sales report. The USDA reported 1.431 MMT through the week ending last Thursday. That was 36.2% above last week’s sales, but 49.5% below the same week last year. A good portion of that was to China, at 619,833 MT.

Analysts overestimated soybean meal export sales, as the USDA reported 83,464 MT through the week ending 12/12 (expectations were 150k to 350k MT). Soy oil export sales were above expectations, but still below last week’s sales as the USDA reported 28,005 MT sold for the week ending 12/12.