-Huge sales week for soybeans and corn
-Wheat sales within expectations
-SBM/SBO sales as expected
While it wasn’t unexpected, this week’s soybean sales were absolutely huge at 3.195 MMT (117.4 million bushels), even beating already strong market expectations of 2.0-3.0 MMT and followed the previous two weeks’ sales of 90.6 million and 116.2 million bushels, respectively. This week’s activity included official net sales to China of nearly 1.7 MMT and at least 1.0 MMT in sales to unknown. Through this week’s reporting period of 9/17/20, China officially had 19.2 MMT of U.S. soybeans on the books, with another 500k+ tonnes in daily sales announcements since. At this time last year, China had a mere 2.0 MMT of U.S. soybeans purchased. Total commitments to all destinations of 1.306 billion bushels compare to last year’s 447 million and are record high through the third week of the marketing year. Given the extremely strong pace of sales already, weekly sales only need to average roughly 17.5 million bushels/week in order to reach the USDA’s 2.125 billion bushel export projection vs last year’s 26.5 million/week from this point forward. Keep in mind, though, last year’s sales were heavily back-loaded, while years with a “typical” sales pattern running very strong seasonally during Sept-Dec (the 12/13-15/16 marketing years) saw Dec-Aug sales average only 10.3 mil bu/week. For China to match record U.S. exports of 36.1 MMT, they will still need to buy another 17-18 MMT this year.
U.S. corn sales were very strong, as well, at 2.139 MMT (84.2 mil bu), beating market expectations of 1.05-1.80 MMT and rising from the previous two weeks’ strong sales of 63.4 and 71.8 million bushels. Sales this week included 566k tonnes to China, bringing their official sales on the books to 9.8 MMT. Total commitments to all destinations are record high through three weeks of the marketing year at 890 million bushels and compare to 360 million at this time last year. In order to reach the USDA’s 2.325 billion bushel export projection, we estimate corn sales will need to average roughly 28.5 million bushels/week through the end of August, exactly the same pace as last year from this point forward.
U.S. wheat sales last week were uneventful at 351k tonnes (12.9 mil bu), falling within expectations of 250-600k tonnes and similar to the previous two weeks’ 12.3 and 12.2 million bushels. There was no new activity to China this week, with their total purchases sitting at 1.5 MMT. Total commitments of 495 million bushels are up 7% from last year’s 462 million bushels now 16 weeks into the 2020/21 marketing year, leaving sales needing to average roughly 13.8 million bushels/week from this point forward, vs last year’s 14.7 million/week, in order to reach the USDA’s 975 million bushel export projection.
In the 2nd to last full week of the 2019/20 soybean meal and soybean oil marketing years, old crop sales were 28.6k tonnes and 4.4k tonnes respectively. At this time, it appears soybean meal exports may fall a bit short of the USDA’s projection, while soybean oil exports should reach their projection. New crop sales last week were respectable for both with SBM’s 295k tonnes in line with expectations of 200-400k, as well as SBO’s 20.4k vs 0-30k expected. New crop SBM total commitments of 2.363 MMT compare to 2.159 MMT last year, while SBO commitments of 122k tonnes compare to 69k last year.
