-Renewable diesel expansion plans put on hold due to high feedstock costs
-Brazil August corn exports expected down sharply from last year
-France ticks soft wheat crop estimate lower
-Russian wheat yields remain below year ago levels
-Egypt cancels vegoil tender
While near-term ideas remain limited, the GFS remains optimistic for 1-2†widespread rains from MN/IA east over the next 10 days with several events expected during the period.
 CVR Energy announced they are putting their plans to produce 7k barrels/day (~107 million gallons/year) of renewable diesel at their Wynnewood, OK refinery on hold due to the extremely high feedstock prices, stating “…the economics do not make sense for us to complete the conversion at this time.†The site planned to use soybean oil as the primary feedstock.
 Brazilian corn exports in August are expected to be only 3-4 MMT vs last year’s 6.2 MMT given the issues with this year’s safrinha crop according to Cargonave and Anec. Anec sees August soybean exports at around 6.5 MMT vs 8.7 MMT in July and 5.8 MMT last year.
 France slightly lowered their estimate of the oft wheat crop to 36.7 MMT from 37.1 MMT previously, but obviously remains substantially above last year’s drought-afflicted 29.2 MMT crop and roughly 10% larger than the most-recent 5-year average production. Heavy late season rains have raised some quality concerns for the wheat crop. The barley crop was raised to 11.7 MMT from 11.3 MMT previously (10.4 MMT last year), while their first estimate of this year’s corn crop at 12.9 MMT would be down slightly from last year’s 13.3 MMT. The rapeseed crop was ticked higher to 3.22 MMT from 3.00 MMT previously (3.29 MMT last year).
 With 47.4 MMT of this year’s wheat crop harvested so far vs 49.7 MMT by now a year ago, Russia’s average wheat yield has been running roughly 6% below year ago levels. While this only reflects winter wheat yields, we would note the USDA’s current estimate of Russian all wheat yields, including spring wheat, reflects an expected decline of only 2% from last year. The total area harvested so far of 13.8 mil hectares is above last year’s 13.6 million at this point.
ï‚· Algeria is believed to have bought 150-200k tonnes of optional-origin milling wheat at $320-$323/tonne c&f, likely EU origin, for Sept shipment.
ï‚· Turkey is believed to have provisionally bought around 300k tonnes of wheat (11.5-12.5% protein) for Sept 16-30 shipment with prices ranging from $297.40-$324.00/tonne c&f, with additional purchases still possible as the original tender was for 395k tonnes. In their previous tender on July 13, they bought 395k tonnes at a lowest price of $253.88/tonne c&f. Separately, after provisionally buying 515k tonnes of feed barley in their tender earlier this week, Turkey decided to cancel all purchases with prices ending up being too high.
ï‚· Pakistan tendered for 400k tonnes of wheat for Sept 15-Oct 31 shipment periods, with offers due by Aug 23.
ï‚· Egypt canceled their tender for 30k tonnes of soybean oil and 10k tonnes of sunflower oil given limited participation in the tender and high prices