-US SRW wheat competitive in Egyptian tender
-South Korea buys more Brazilian corn well below U.S. values
-USDA reports soybean sales to unknown
-Argentine soybean planting just underway
-Australian wheat crop estimate lowered solidly
-Chinese overnight corn auction puts total sales over 100 MMT
-South Korea buys more Brazilian corn well below U.S. values
-USDA reports soybean sales to unknown
-Argentine soybean planting just underway
-Australian wheat crop estimate lowered solidly
-Chinese overnight corn auction puts total sales over 100 MMT
ï‚· The warning shots continue for U.S. corn export demand as a South Korean feedmill bought 60k tonnes of expected Brazilian corn overnight at just $199.82/tonne c&f for December shipment. Gulf corn to Korea for Dec shipment is currently seen around $212- 213/tonne c&f.
 Egypt’s tender yesterday afternoon for an unspecified amount of wheat for Dec 11-20 shipment saw U.S. SRW offered the lowest on an fob basis at $219/tonne, well below the next lowest offer of Russian wheat at $230/tonne fob. However, with the much higher freight costs (around $30/tonne), there is uncertainty if the U.S. actually will get the business. The wheat market is solidly higher this morning, potentially on optimism of US SRW sales, but with that being the case, likely just put U.S. prices in an uncompetitive position once again.
 The USDA reported the sale of 260k tonnes of soybeans to unknown this morning, with 200k for 2018/19 and 60k for 2019/20. It’s no surprise some sales will start to be seen given the renewed price weakness of late, but overall sales in recent weeks have been extremely poor, while sales to non-Chinese destinations are anticipated, but simply cannot make up for the lost business to China.
 The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange ticked their estimate of the Argentine wheat crop lower to 19.4 MMT from 19.7 MMT previously, but is in line with USDA’s current estimate of 19.5 MMT and still up modestly from last year’s 18.5 MMT. The exchange said planting of the Argentine soybean crop has just gotten underway with 2% complete.
 ABARES sharply lowered their estimate of the Australian wheat crop to 16.6 MMT from 19.1 MMT last month and is well below the USDA’s last estimate of 18.5 MMT, but is now more in line with comments/expectations out of Australia in recent weeks. Last year’s crop was 21.3 MMT.
 Strategie Grains sees the EU’s wheat area rising 5.5% for the 2019/20 crop to 24.2 million hectares, but will require an improvement in rains over the next 3-4 weeks. They further lowered expected EU rapeseed area for the 2019/20 crop to 6.22 million hectares (6.32 million previously) and now reflects ideas for a 9.5% decline from this year’s 6.87 million hectares.
 The EU Commission trimmed their estimate of this year’s EU soft wheat crop to 127.4 MMT from 128.7 MMT previously and compares to last year’s crop of 142.1 MMT. However, they left their estimate of EU soft wheat exports unchanged at 20.0 MMT and reflects only a minor decline from last year’s 21.3 MMT. Their estimate of the EU corn crop bumped slightly higher to 62.3 MMT from 61.9 MMT previously.
 Indonesian domestic biodiesel consumption during the Jan-Sept period totaled just 2.06 million kiloliters, running well behind the government’s 2018 annual target of 3.92 million kl, which implies usage thru September should have been around 2.94 million.
 China’s sale of 1.7 MMT of state reserve corn overnight pushed total auction sales for the year, since they started in mid-April, to over 100 MMT.
ï‚· South Korea bought 60k tonnes of optional-origin soybean meal at $377.45/tonne c&f for May 2019 arrival.