U.S. farmers look at soybean shipping, storage in Vietnam

American Soybean Association Vice President and Trade Policy and International Affairs Committee Chairman Randy Mann and United Soybean Board International Marketing Committee Chairman Jim Call visited Vietnam’s two largest and newest grain handling ports and the country’s only fully Panamax-capable discharge facilities. The tour of the Bunge facility was led by Jean Louis Nicaise, General Manager of the Phu My Port, and Eric Leleu, Director of Agribusiness and manager of Bunge’s oilseed crushing facility at the Phu My Port location. Bunge currently has the largest fully Panamax-capable bulk discharge facility in Vietnam, able to unload two Panamax vessels or one Panamax vessel and two Handysize vessels at once. The discharge rate for soybean meal is 735,000 bushels per day.

This year, Bunge Vietnam was the leading trader of soybean meal from the U.S. into Vietnam, importing more than 9 million bushels. The company is also currently building Vietnam’s first oilseed crushing facility, which is also located at the Phu My Port location. When completed, it will have an 110,000 bushel-per-day capacity and is expected to be up and running by the summer of 2011.

Following the Bunge tour, the team proceeded to the Cai Mep Interflour Port, located just downstream on the Thi Vai River at the mouth to the South China Sea. Interflour Vietnam is a joint venture with an Australian and Indonesian consortium and Sojitz of Japan. It is the first privately owned grain terminal and storage facility in Vietnam. Cai Mep is also the only other fully capable Panamax grain facility in Vietnam. Located on the facility is a 500-metric-ton-per-day wheat flourmill, and grain storage facilities capable of holding 160,000 metric tons of corn, wheat, soybeans and soybean meal. Construction of 4.6 million bushels of flat storage for soybean meal was recently completed in August. Chief Operating Officer and Port Superintendent John Choi, and Special Projects Consultant Jim Echle conducted the Cai Mep tour. In 2010, Vietnam imported almost 23 million bushels of U.S. soybean meal, ranking it as the fourth-largest U.S. customer outside of North America.