-Soybean exports remain strong – within expectations
-Corn exports ramping up – above expectations – marketing year high
-Wheat exports within expectations
U.S. soybean exports, for the week ended 2/04/21, were 1.801 MMT (66.2 million bushels), within market expectations of 1.0-2.0 MMT (36.7-73.5 million bushels) and continue to run at a rather healthy pace as China ships their remaining U.S. purchases prior to Brazilian new crop supplies becoming available. U.S. soybean shipments to China last week were 877k tonnes and would reduce their outstanding (unshipped) U.S. purchases to roughly 2.1 MMT based on last week’s Export Sales data. Assuming roughly half of the total outstanding old crop sales to unknown are Chinese, as well, would imply China has around 4.0 MMT (147 million bushels) in U.S. purchases left to ship, indicating another 3-4 weeks of strong exports are likely without further notable purchases being made. Cumulative export inspections of 1.807 billion bushels are up 80% from last year’s 1.001 billion, leaving Feb-Aug exports needing to average roughly 11-12 million bushels/week in order to reach the USDA’s current 2.230 billion bushel export projection. Late last week, Census Bureau official trade data for December showed 398 million bushels of soybeans were shipped in the month vs Inspections data showing exports of roughly 380 million. Through the first four months of 2020/21, official soybean exports of 1.494 billion bushels are 59 million bushels larger than Inspections, but as the shipment pace seasonally slows considerably, the monthly differences between the two will decline, as well.
U.S. corn exports last week of 1.577 MMT (62.1 million bushels) were a marketing year high and reflected a solid uptick from the most-recent 4-week average of 46.7 million bushels, while continuing to run considerably larger than last year’s same-week exports of 789k tonnes (31.0 mil bu). This week’s corn exports were also above market expectations of 900k-1.4 MMT (35.4-55.1 million bushels). An increase in activity to China is being seen following their recent purchases with 358k tonnes shipped last week, leading the way of all destinations. Cumulative export inspections of 845 million bushels are up 85% from last year’s 456 million, leaving corn exports needing to average roughly 53.7 million bushels/week through the end of August in order to reach the USDA’s current 2.550 billion bushel export projection – which should be raised by at least 200 million bushels in tomorrow’s WASDE report. Last week’s Census data release showed 182 million bushels of corn were exported in December vs Inspections data of 165 million, with Sept-Dec marketing year to date official exports of 627 million bushels being 33 million bushels larger than Inspections so far.
U.S. wheat exports last week were 441k tonnes (16.2 million bushels), within market expectations of 350-550k tonnes (12.9-20.0 mil bu), little-changed from the previous week’s 414k tonnes (15.2 mil bu) and a bit below last year’s same-week exports of 568k tonnes (20.9 mil bu). Cumulative export inspections of 625 million bushels are down a modest 1% from last year’s 633 million, with wheat shipments needing to pick up a bit in order to reach the USDA’s 985 million bushel export projection, as we see roughly 19 million bushels/week needing to be shipped over the final four months of 2020/21 vs the 15.0 million/week average over the last 8 weeks and last year’s 17.8 million/week average from this point forward.
