-No USDA sales announcements for China
-Brazil soybean harvest remains historically slow, leaving large export line-up unfulfilled
-Russia continues to tweak wheat export tax plan
-China reserve wheat auction cools
 Focus on Brazil’s new crop soybean export program, and likely logistical nightmare, is heating up with shipping line-ups for February showing what easily would be a record 8.5 MMT month, with one slight problem – the lack of available soybeans as harvest is barely underway. Record February exports of 5.3 MMT were in 2019, while last year saw 4.8 MMT of soybeans exported in Feb. AgRural estimates Brazil’s soybean harvest is only 1.9% complete, the slowest in 10 years, with an estimated 2.5 MMT collected so far, mostly in Mato Grosso vs last year when 11.7 MMT was already harvested. The slow soybean harvest is obviously impacting the planting of the safrinha corn crop, as well, with only 2% of the crop in Mato Grosso
planted vs average around 15%.
 China’s weekly wheat auction of state reserves saw a notable cool down in activity with 2.187 MMT of the 4.025 MMT (54.3%) bought, following two red-hot weeks with nearly 100% sale rates, while the average price paid declined to 2,373 yuan/tonne ($367) from 2,455 yuan/tonne ($379) the week prior.
ï‚· USDA reported corn sales of 126k tonnes to Mexico and 110k tonnes to Japan for 2020/21 this morning, as well as 133k tonnes of SBM to the Philippines. No big sales to China this morning.
ï‚· Russia continues to massage its wheat export tax plan, with ideas the new formula-based tax structure will now begin on June 1 instead of at the start of the new marketing year on July 1 as previously indicated. The fixed tariff of 25 euros/tonne will be in place from Feb 15-28, then rising to 50 euro/tonne on March 1 until whatever the new adjustable tax regime ends up being gets put in place after that.
 Ukraine wheat exports through January reached 13.0 MMT, leaving 4.5 MMT available for export during Feb-June based on the country’s agreed-upon 17.5 MMT export quota. This would be nearly identical to last year’s wheat exports during the period of 4.6 MMT, as July-Jan exports totaled 15.9 MMT out of the 20.5 MMT marketing year total.
ï‚· Russian wheat export values declined for the 2nd consecutive week last week with 12.5% protein Black Sea supplies down $3/tonne to $293/tonne fob according to IKAR.
 This afternoon, USDA will release the monthly Oilseed Crushings report. The average estimate of U.S. soybean crush in December is 193.9 million bushels (192.0-195.0 million range of ideas), a record for the month, vs 191.0 million in November and 184.7 million last year. The average estimate reflects nationwide crush 5.9% above NOPA-member crush for the month, exactly in line with the average deviation over the last four months, but a bit larger than the 5.5% difference in November. If Dec crush is in line with expectations, 2020/21 marketing year to date crush of 753 million bushels would be up 44 million bushels from last year’s 709 million, leaving Jan-Aug crush needing to total 1.447 billion bushels vs last year’s 1.456 billion
based on the USDA’s 2.200 billion bushel annual estimate. Relative to the solid 6% year-over-year increase in crush so far, a considerable demand rationing job is at hand for the rest of the year. End December U.S. soybean oil stocks are estimated at 2.254 billion pounds (2.200-2.358 billion range),
up from 2.118 billion in November and last year’s 2.134 billion pounds. The average estimate reflects stocks 32.7% above NOPA-member stocks vs the 35.9% difference in November and 32.3% average difference over the last three months.
 Friday afternoon’s CFTC Disaggregated COT data for futures/options combined for the week ended 1/26/21 showed funds modest net buyers in grain markets of 14.7k contracts in corn (net long 364k vs 429k record), 4.7k soybeans (net long 157k vs 254k record), 0.7k CBOT wheat (net long 21k), 2.1k KCBT wheat (net long 60k) and 1.3k MPLS wheat (net long 15k). Funds were stronger buyers in SBO of 16.6k contracts, pushing their net long to 107.3k, nearing the 126.5k record, but were net sellers of 3.0k contracts in SBM, with a middle-of-the-road 75k contract net long.
Weather
Brazil saw rains of .75-1.5â€+ in all but Minas Gerais and the eastern 1/3 of Goias over the weekend. During the coming week, 2-4†is expected in most of Minas Gerais and Goias, with totals of 1-2†elsewhere. The 6-10 day period indicates another 2-4â€+in most of Minas Gerais and Goias, as well as Mato Grosso, with conditions fairly quiet elsewhere. This forecast is less concerning regarding the heavy rain potential than it appeared last week. Argentina saw .75-1.5â€+ across all growing areas over the weekend,with some 2â€+ totals in northern Buenos Aries and southern sections of Cordoba, Santa Fe and Entre Rios. Rains will be finishing up in the far northern growing regions in the next 24 hours, with dry weather to dominate most of the
Argentine growing regions for the rest of the next 5 days. The 6-10 day period also looks fairly quiet with some showers impacting the far western growing regions with .25-.75â€.