-Egypt tenders for wheat – Romanian cheapest, Russian not competitive
-Brazilian ethanol production expected down notably, while sugar surges
-NOPA report today
-No USDA sales announcements
 Ukrainian grain traders union UGA estimates the country’s 2020/21 corn exports at 24.0 MMT, down sharply from last year’s 30.3 MMT, based on a corn crop of 28-30 MMT vs 35.6 MMT last year. Ukraine’s latest official estimates put the crop at 29.9 MMT and exports at 22.9 MMT, while USDA is estimating the crop at 29.0 MMT and exports at 24.0 MMT.
 CONAB estimated 2020/21 Brazilian ethanol production at 32.9 billion liters (8.7 billion gallons), down nearly 8% from last year’s 35.7 billion liters (9.4 billion gallons) as sugar mills heavily shift their production away from ethanol to sugar with sugar production expected to surge 40% from last year to 41.8 MMT. Of the total ethanol production, 29.8 bil liters is expected to be sugar-based and 3.1 bil liters corn-based.
 The relative high price of palm oil relative to soybean oil prompted a solid decline in India’s palm oil imports in November to 618k tonnes from 672k in October, the lowest in five months, while soybean oil imports rose sharply to 251k tonnes in November from 165k in October. This situation is likely to be short-lived, though, as India recently notably cut the import duty on crude palm oil to 27.5% from 37.5%, while that for crude soybean oil and sunflower oil held steady at 35%. This change has some expecting palm oil imports to rise by 100k tonnes/month.
ï‚· After the close yesterday, Egypt tendered for an unspecified amount of wheat for Feb 1-15 shipment. The lowest offers were Romanian wheat at $283.43-283.94/tonne c&f ($270.96-271.47 fob), followed by Ukrainian at $283.95-285.43 c&f ($269.50-$273.00 fob) and French at $286.85-291.49 c&f ($269.10-273.74 fob). The lowest Russian offer was $297.50 c&f ($285.00 fob). In their last tender on Dec 1, Egypt bought 170k tonnes of Russian/Ukrainian wheat at $274.85-$275.20/tonne c&f ($261.85-262.50 fob).
ï‚· There were no USDA sales announcements this morning.
 China’s weekly state reserve wheat auction saw 649k tonnes of the 4.031 MMT offered sold (16.1%) at an average price of 2,339 yuan/tonne ($357.40), comparable to the previous week’s 715k tonnes sold at 2,342 yuan/tonne.
 Picketers continue to block truck entrances to Argentina’s Rosario crush/export hub as the oilseed workers’ wage strike remains in place.
ï‚· Having missed the November 30 deadline, the EPA is reportedly aiming for December 31 to announce their 2021 biofuel blending proposal. This would push the finalization of the 2021 rule to June.
 NOPA will release their monthly soybean crush data today at 11:00 AM CT. The average trade estimate of November soybean crush by NOPA members is 180.0 million bushels (172.0-192.0 million range of ideas), again sharply surpassing last year’s 164.9 million bushels, as well as the current Nov record of 167.0 million bushels in 2018. October NOPA crush was 185.2 million bushels. The average estimate of end November soybean oil stocks held by NOPA members is 1.548 billion pounds (1.401-1.550 billion range of ideas), which would be up from 1.487 billion in October, solidly above last year’s Nov stocks of 1.448 billion and would be the highest Nov SBO stocks in eight years.
Weather
Brazil saw .25-.85†rains yesterday in most areas, with the exception of RGDS, Minas Gerais, the northern ½ of Goias and NE 1/3 of Mato Grosso being dry. Over the next five days, 1-2â€+ will fall across most of RGDS, Santa Catarina and Parana, Sao Paulo as well as the southern ½ of MGDS, while .25-.75†amounts with coverage of around 65-70% is expected for rest of the Brazilian growing regions. Widespread .75-1.5â€+ rains are expected in most areas in the 6-10 day period. Argentina was dry yesterday with the exception of a few spotty showers producing generally less than .25†in La Pampa and Buenos Aries. Through Thursday, most areas are expected to be dry other than .40-1†expected in Corrientes. A good rain event is still on tap for Fri-Sat with .75-1.5â€+ expected and coverage of around 90-95%. Conditions turn dry again in the 6-10 day outlook.