-USDA reports large cancellation of Chinese U.S. corn purchases
-USDA ag attache sees Chinese corn imports solidly below USDA ideas
-Private Brazilian soybean crop ideas continue to decline
-USDA export sales decent corn/soybeans, strong SBM, very weak wheat
Grain markets were lower overnight, led by soybeans and soybean oil, as they took a breather following the recent impressive spikes higher. The considerable buying that had been seen late in the overnight session in recent days was absent today. Malaysian palm oil returned from holiday and was solidly lower.
 The USDA ag attaché in China continues to see this year’s total Chinese corn imports at 20.0 MMT, solidly below USDA’s current official estimate 26.0 MMT and down solidly from last year’s 29.5 MMT. The attaché noted that China’s interest in corn exports has clearly shifted to Ukrainian supplies this year given their record crop and that the continued large level of outstanding/unshipped U.S. purchases makes it unlikely much additional business will be done for U.S. supplies this marketing year. The attaché sees corn feed demand rebounding this year with the rebuild of hogs, but at a lesser degree than USDA ideas and from a lower starting point from last year. Specifically, the attaché sees corn feed demand this year at 211 MMT vs USDA’s 214 MMT estimate, rising from last year’s 196.0 MMT, which USDA officially has at 203 MMT in their balance sheet. The attaché is in line with USDA on industrial usage of corn at 80 MMT this year, which would be down slightly from last year’s 82 MMT. The attaché sees this year’s Chinese corn ending stocks at 214.2 MMT, modestly above the USDA’s 210.2 MMT
estimate and would be up marginally from last year’s 212.7 MMT (USDA 205.7 MMT).
ï‚· USDA reported the cancellation of 380k tonnes of corn by China for the 2021/22 marketing year this morning.
 Two additional Brazilian ag consultants solidly cut their estimate of the Brazilian soybean crop this week. Datagro now sees the crop at 130.0 MMT vs previous ideas of 142.1 MMT, while Cogo lowered their estimate to 125 MMT from 131 MMT previously. Over the last few weeks, multiple private estimates have lowered their ideas to 130 MMT or below vs USDA’s current estimate of 139.0 MMT and last year’s 138.0 MMT. USDA is very likely to further reduce their estimate in next
week’s WASDE report. With the lower crop ideas, all eyes will be on any shift in demand to the U.S., which hasn’t really been the case yet.
 Ukraine’s ag minister slightly raised their estimate of total grain exports this year to 65.5 MMT from 65.2 MMT previously, without providing details. USDA is currently estimating Ukraine’s combined corn, wheat and barley exports at 63.7 MMT vs 45.0 MMT last year.
ï‚· Philippines is tendering for an unknown amount of feed wheat from Australia for July shipment and soybean meal from Argentina for June-July shipment.
 Malaysian cargo surveyor SGS estimates the country exported 1.140 MMT of palm oil/products in January, down sharply from 1.564 MMT in December, but comparable to last year’s 1.104 MMT.
 Please see our Market Insights post at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/46508 for details on today’s USDA Export Sales report.
ï‚· U.S. corn sales were 1.175 MMT (46.3 million bushels), within market expectations of 600k-1.3 MMT and comparable to sales of the previous two weeks of 55.2 million and 43.0 million bushels, but went up again massive sales last year this week of 293 million bushels as China made significant purchases.
ï‚· U.S. soybean sales of 1.096 MMT (40.3 mil bu) were at the upper end of market expectations of 600k-1.2 MMT, up from the previous week’s 37.7 million bushels and were the highest in seven weeks, while activity showed small net cancellations by China of 29k tonnes.
ï‚· U.S. wheat sales were horrible at a mere 58k tonnes (2.1 mil bu), below market expectations of 200-675k tonnes and near the marketing year low of 1.8 mil bu.
ï‚· U.S. soybean meal sales last week wer