-Fund long in corn approaches all-time record
-Ukraine new crop wheat/corn ideas remain strong
-China wheat auction interest continues to decline
-Ukraine sunseed production seen up sharply, but old crop sunoil exports to be limited
 APK-Inform sees Ukraine’s coming wheat crop at 27.6 MMT vs 25.2 MMT last year, allowing for exports of 19.8 MMT vs 17.5
MMT this year and 2021/22 ending stocks holding mostly steady at 1.6 MMT vs this year’s estimated 1.5 MMT. Early ideas on
new crop corn production are quite optimistic, as well, at 36.7 MMT vs last year’s 30.0 MMT, allowing exports to jump to 29.5
MMT from this year’s 23.2 MMT. They see new crop total grain production at 73.6 MMT vs 65.2 MMT last year. They see sharply higher sunseed production this year, as well, at 16.4 MMT vs 14.3 MMT last year, which would allow sunoil exports to rise sharply to 6.54 MMT vs 5.6 MMT estimated could be exported in 2020/21 based on the balance sheet.
ï‚· Current-year Ukrainian sunoil exports may be a bit less than APK-Inform estimates is possible, though, as the government and sunoil producers apparently agreed to limit 2020/21 total exports to 5.382 MMT in order to prevent domestic prices from rising prior to the new crop harvest.
ï‚· Ukraine spring grain planting is 20% complete (mostly barley) after a slow start due to cold conditions. Corn planting is just
underway at 1% complete.
 Ideas on U.S. corn planting in this afternoon’s update are 10-11% vs 8% average, with spring wheat around 14-15% vs average around 12%. The first soybean planting progress update is expected this afternoon, as well. Winter wheat conditions are expected to be steady/slightly higher. The cold snap this week is not expected to result in much damage for the winter wheat crop.
ï‚· Black Sea wheat export values ticked higher last week with 12.5% protein Russian supplies up $1-$3/tonne to $247-$248/tonne fob, while Ukrainian wheat was up $5/tonne to $237-$241/tonne fob. Ukrainian corn prices rose $3/tonne last week to $255-$260/tonne fob.
ï‚· Ukraine wheat stocks at large/medium-sized companies as of April 1 stood at 3.9 MMT vs 4.1 MMT a year ago, while total grain stocks of 12.8 MMT compared to 13.5 MMT last year.
 China’s weekly auction of state wheat reserves saw only 411k tonnes of the 4.016 MMT offered sold (10.2%), easily the lowest sale rate of 2021 auctions so far, in the first auction since the minimum sale price was raised last week to 2,350 yuan/tonne (~$359) from 2,290 yuan/tonne previously in an effort to cool demand. The average price paid of 2,401 yuan/tonne ($368) was up from the previous week’s 2,349 yuan/tonne ($360). China also recently changed the rules of the weekly auction, only allowing actual end users to buy wheat, banning various traders from buying in the auction and reselling on their own terms.
 Friday afternoon’s CFTC Disaggregated COT data for the week ended 4/13/21 showed funds adding 15.4k contracts in net longs in corn, now at 402k, their largest net long exposure since January 2011 and nearing the fund record net long of 429k contracts.
Funds were also net buyers in soybean oil of 4.1k contracts (net long 81k) and 4.2k MPLS wheat (net long 9.7k). On the other
hand, funds were net sellers of 12.0k contracts in soybeans, reducing their net long to 142k and 5.6k CBOT wheat, pushing their net short to 3.2k contracts. Funds were net sellers of 3.5k contracts in KCBT wheat(net long 11.0k) and 17.5k SBM (net long 44k).
Weather
Weekend precip activity included .25-.75†of roughly 15% of the corn belt, with similar amounts at 35% coverage of
central/southern plains wheat. The coming 5-day period is expected to bring .25-.75†amounts and 40% corn belt coverage, with similar amounts and coverage for winter wheat areas, as well. Spring wheat rains/coverage look very limited this week. A driertrending outlook for Brazil’s safrinha corn crop will need to be watched closely