-Soybean exports remain strong – in line with expectations
-Corn exports within expectations
-Wheat exports within expectations
U.S. soybean exports, for the week ended 11/26/20, were 2.036 MMT (74.8 million bushels), in line with market expectations of 1.8-2.2 MMT (66.1-80.8 mil bu), down modestly from the previous week’s 2.234 MMT (82.1 mil bu), but well above last year’s same-week exports of 1.577 MMT (57.9 mil bu) as the string of each week’s 2020/21 soybean exports surpassing last year’s remains in place now 13 weeks into the new marketing year. Shipments to China absolutely dominated this week’s activity at 1.666 MMT (61.2 mil bu), accounting for 82% of all exports. Cumulative export inspections of 980 million bushels are up 67% from last year’s 587 million and remain record high through the first quarter of 2020/21, surpassing the previous record of 959 million bushels through 13 weeks in 2016/17. In order to reach the USDA’s 2.200 billion bushel export projection, we estimate soybean exports will need to average roughly 29.0 million bushels/week over the remainder of the marketing year vs last year’s 25.6 million/week, but would be below the average during Dec-Aug of the 2016/17-2018/19 marketing years of 29.9-31.5 million bushels/week.
U.S. corn exports last week were 890k tonnes (35.0 million bushels), in line with market expectations of 700k-1.0 MMT (27.6-39.4 mil bu), up slightly from the previous week’s 833k tonnes (32.8 mil bu) and significantly above last year’s same-week exports of 440k tonnes (17.3 mil bu). As with soybean, each of the first 13 weeks’ corn exports of 2020/21 surpassed last year’s same-week exports as well. A few cargoes to China each week also remains a consistent feature with 340k tonnes shipped last week. Cumulative export inspections of 399 million bushels are up 68% from last year’s 238 million, leaving weekly shipments needing to average an estimated very strong 53 million bushels/week through the end of August vs last year’s 35.6 million/week average from this point forward and record average weekly exports during Dec-Aug of 50.3 million bushels/week in 2017/18. We estimate China has around 11 MMT of unshipped U.S. corn purchases currently on the books, which would equate to roughly 280k tonnes (10.4 mil bu) in weekly shipments from this point forward if no additional purchases are made.
U.S. wheat exports last week were 503k tonnes (18.5 million bushels), within market expectations of 300-600k tonnes (11.0-22.0 mil bu), up from last week’s 363k tonnes (13.4 mil bu), above last year’s 335k tonnes (12.3 mil bu) and were a 7-week high. Last week’s exports broke the six-week string of falling below the average “needed” export pace of 17.4 million bushels/week, having averaged only 12.0 million bushels/week during the period. Cumulative export inspections of 474 million bushels are up a mere 1% from last year’s 466 million, keeping pace with the USDA’s 975 million bushel annual export projection also reflecting an estimated 1% increase year over year.
