-Corn exports lower than expected
-Soybean exports at bottom of expectations
-Wheat exports above expectations
U.S. corn exports, for the week ended 8/05/21, were 667 tonnes (26.3 million bushels), below market expectations of 900k-1.25 MMT (35.4-49.2 mil bu), down from the previous week’s 1.397 MMT (55.0 mil bu) and, most importantly, well below the roughly 60 million bushels/week we estimate will be needed over the final four weeks of 2020/21 in order to reach the USDA’s 2.850 billion bushel export projection. In fact, this week’s exports were quite disappointing, being a marketing year low and including only 138k tonnes to China vs the 700-800k/week they’ve been shipping in most weeks of late and leaving them with roughly 2.4 MMT (96 million bushels) in old crop purchases still on the books. Based on the overall pace of shipping, it has been a long-held expectation that the majority of China’s old crop purchases would need to be shipped by the end of August if the USDA’s export projection is to be met, but the slowdown in activity of late certainly raises some red flags. Cumulative export inspections of 2.501 billion bushels are still up 61% from last year, matching the USDA’s current estimated percent change in annual exports, but obviously, a few more disappointing weeks would change that perspective. Keep in mind, official Census Bureau export data is running more than 100 million bushels larger than that indicated by Inspections data, which is already taken into account in our estimated “needed” shipment pace.
U.S. soybean exports last week of 114k tonnes (4.2 million bushels) were at the bottom of market expectations of 100-300k tonnes (3.7-11.0 million bushels), down from the previous week’s 185k tonnes (6.8 mil bu), and nearly matching the marketing year low of 4.1 million bushels, but still keeping pace with the average “needed” shipment pace of 4.4 million bushels/week in order to reach the USDA’s 2.270 billion bushel export projection. With official Census Bureau exports running more than 90 million bushels above Inspections data, we expect the USDA’s projection to prove fairly accurate and anticipate no change in the WASDE report on Thursday. Cumulative export inspections of 2.145 billion bushels are up 45% from last year’s 1.479 billion bushels with 3 1/2 weeks remaining in the marketing year.
U.S. wheat exports last week were 606k tonnes (22.3 mil bu), above market expectations of 350-525k tonnes (12.9-19.3 mil bu), up strongly from the previous week’s 405k tonnes (14.9 mil bu) and a marketing year high through the first 10 weeks of 2021/22. Cumulative exports of 162 million bushels are now down 15% from last year vs USDA projecting marketing year total exports of 875 million bushels to be down 12% on the year. We estimate wheat exports will need to average roughly 15.7 million bushels/week over the remainder of the marketing year in order to reach the USDA’s export projection vs last year’s 17.5 million/week average from this point forward.
