-Corn sales above expectations and 9-week high
-Soybean sales lower than expected, with Chinese unshipped sales nearly exhausted
-Wheat sales as expected – keeping pace with USDA projection
-SBM/SBO sales respectable
U.S. soybean sales, for the week ended 3/05/20, were 303k tonnes (11.1 million bushels), below market expectations of 400-800k tonnes, down from the previous week’s 12.7 million bushels and were the 2nd lowest of the 2019/20 marketing year, besting only the Christmas week sales of 9.3 million bushels. Year ago sales this week were a very-strong 70.3 million bushels. This week’s activity included net cancellations by China of 90k tonnes and leaves their outstanding (unshipped) sales on the books at a mere 63k tonnes. Soybean sales will need to average roughly 22 million bushels/week in order to reach the USDA’s 1.825 billion bushel export projection, but have averaged just 13.0 million/week over the last four weeks. Clearly, considerable Chinese purchases of old crop soybeans will be needed at some point if the USDA’s old crop export projection holds any hope of being achieved. Total commitments of 1.263 billion bushels are now down 16% from last year’s 1.510 billion.
U.S. corn sales were a 12-week high at 1.471 MMT (57.9 million bushels), beating market expectations of 600k-1.2 MMT, rising solidly from the previous two weeks’ sales of 30.4 million and 33.9 million bushels, and sharply outpacing last year’s same-week sales of just 14.7 million bushels. Japan led the way this week with strong purchases of 725k tonnes, followed by South Korea with 200k tonnes. While this week’s sales were the clear stand-out of late, it is worthy of note that each of the last nine weeks’ sales have met/exceeded the average “needed” sales pace in order to reach the USDA’s 1.725 billion bushels, which currently stands at 22.5 million bushels/week. Last year’s sales from this point forward averaged just 14.2 million/week. While gains continue to be made, total commitments of 1.107 billion bushels are still down 31% from last year’s 1.610 billion, with plenty of work left to do in order to get to the USDA’s estimated 16.5% decline in exports on the year.
U.S. wheat sales of 452k tonnes (16.6 million bushels) were within market expectations of 200-600k tonnes, were better than year ago same-week sales of 9.7 million bushels, but slipped from the previous week’s 19.9 million. However, wheat sales of late continue to run at a respectable pace, averaging 16.6 million bushels/week over the last six weeks vs the roughly 7.6 million/week we estimate is needed over the final 12 weeks of the 2019/20 marketing year in order to reach the USDA’s 1.000 billion bushel export projection. Sales over the final 5-6 weeks of the year typically are quite minimal (3.1 mil bu/week average last year in final 6 weeks) so decent sales will be needed for the next month or so to help ensure reaching the USDA’s estimate. Total commitments of 868 million bushels are up 3.4% from last year’s 839 million vs the USDA estimating marketing year total exports up 6.8%.
U.S. soybean meal sales were respectable at 172k tonnes, and while they were in the lower portion of elevated market expectations of 125-400k tonnes, they easily met the roughly 111k tonne/week average “needed” sales pace and have averaged 302k tonnes/week over the last nine weeks. Overall, SBM sales continue to run at a very solid clip. Total commitments are still down nearly 7% from last year vs USDA estimating 2019/20 exports down 2.6% on the year so decent sales will need to continue. SBM sales from this point forward last year averaged 114k tonnes/week. Soybean oil sales were respectable, as well, at 24.7k tonnes (7-35k expected), down from the previous week’s 43.4k but outpacing last year’s same-week sales of 14.1k. More importantly, SBO sales continue to outpace the USDA’s just-raised 2.100 billion pound export projection, having averaged 36.6k tonnes/week over the last 9 weeks vs the current average “needed” pace of 7.2k tonnes/week. SBO sales from this point forward last year averaged 13.6k tonnes/week.
On a side note, this week’s Export Sales report reflected another 175k tonnes in sorghum sales to China, putting their total commitments at just over 1.0 MMT vs just 65k tonnes bought at this time last year. There are also 464k tonnes in sales to “unknown” on the books vs just 10k tonnes a year ago.
