What you must know about Noble's US$66m operating loss

The agricultural segment is a laggard.

According to DBS, while Noble's 1Q is traditionally weaker quarter given the harvesting cycle in Brazil and Argentina, the US$66m operating loss from the agriculture segment was a surprise. 

Here's more:

There is usually minimal sugar crushing activities in 1Q and overhead losses are incurred for sugar mills, but this is usually more than offset by merchandising and soya bean crushing profits.

Management attributes the losses to the lack of beans in Argentina from plants that were idled, supply disruptions in Brazil due to logistic congestions and low sugar prices from good harvest. This was partially mitigated by improved performance in soya bean crushing operations in China.