-Potential record Iraq wheat crop likely to lower import needs
-Saudi Arabia tenders for wheat
-Russian wheat crop prospects remain strong
-SBM sales impressive – no sales disappoint this week
 Iraq said this year’s wheat crop appears on track to reach 5 MMT, which would be up sharply from last year’s USDA-estimated crop of 3.0 MMT and, according to USDA data, would be a new all-time record, surpassing 2015/16’s 4.410 MMT. Without providing details, Iraq’s Ag Ministry said a crop at that size would reduce import requirements for 2019/20. In recent years Iraq has been consuming 7.6-7.7 MMT of wheat annually. Based on the USDA’s old crop ending stocks estimate of 1.1 MMT and a 5.0 MMT crop, imports in 2019/20 could decline to around 2.6 MMT from 2018/19’s 4.4 MMT and still maintain ending stocks around typical historical levels near 1.0 MMT.
 Saudi Arabia’s state grain buying agency tendered for 600k tonnes of wheat for July-Sept delivery. Offers are due by tomorrow. In their last wheat tendering March, they bought 625k tonnes for April-June delivery.
 Russian ag consultant, IKAR, see this year’s Russian wheat crop at 80.1 MMT, up sharply from last year’s 71.7 MMT, and would be the 2nd largest on record behind 2017/18’s 85.2 MMT.
 According to a memorandum of understanding signed between Chinese and Malaysian officials, China plans to buy “an additional 1.9 MMT†of palm oil from Malaysia over the next five years. Details beyond that comment were not provided and are a bit difficult to put in context in consideration of the fact China imported roughly 1.9 MMT of palm oil from Malaysia in 2018 alone. They are estimated to import a total of 6.0 MMT of palm oil from all sources in 2018/19.
ï‚· Corn export sales of 596k tonnes (30.7 million bushels) were in line with market expectations of 600k-1.0 MMT and slipped from the previous week’s 37.3 million bushels, but were above last year’s same-week sales of 24.9 million, the first time weekly sales have been above last year since at least mid-February.
ï‚· Soybean sales were 596k tonnes (21.9 million bushels), in line with market expectations of 300-700k tonnes, up from the previous week’s 14.0 million, above last year’s same-week sales of 13.7 million and above the average “needed” sales pace of roughly 12.4 million bushels/week. Modest sales of 212k tonnes to China were reflected in this week’s report.
ï‚· Wheat sales last week of 425k tonnes (15.6 million bushels) were at the top end of market expectations of 200-450k tonnes, were up from the previous week’s 11.7 million bushels, were well above last year’s same-week sales of 11.0 million. New crop sales of 226k tonnes (8.3 million bushels) were in line with market expectations of 100-300k tonnes and brought 2019/20 total commitments to 68 million bushels vs new crop sales at this time last year of 61 million.
ï‚· Soybean meal sales were impressively strong again at 329k tonnes, above the range of market ideas of 125-325k, up from the previous week’s strong sales of 295k tonnes, above last year’s same-week sales of 224k tonnes and the average “needed†pace of 88k tonnes/week. Soybean oil sales of 19.6k tonnes were in line with expectations of 8-30k tonnes and also easily met the roughly 11.2k tonnes/week “needed” pace, as well.
 Please see our post on Market Insights at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/35721 for more information on today’s USDA Export Sales report.
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