-Attache lowers Brazil soybean crop ideas
-Palm oil rallies on ideas of Indonesian palm oil export restrictions
-Very good rains remain in Argentine forecast
-Ukraine corn crop estimate raised
Due to Monday’s holiday, the EIA’s weekly energy/ethanol data will be released on Thursday, while Export Sales will be out Friday. The CFTC’s COT data will still be released Friday afternoon as usual.
 The USDA ag attaché in Brazil lowered their estimate of the soybean crop to 136.0 MMT, below the USDA’s recently-lowered 139.0 MMT estimate and would be near unchanged from last year’s 137.0 MMT (attaché)/138.0 MMT (USDA). With the reduction, the attaché now expects new crop exports at 88.0 MMT, which would be near unchanged from last year’s record 88.5 MMT, while USDA officially has new crop exports 90.0 MMT vs 88.9 MMT last year. The attaché sees new crop crush at 46.0 MMT vs USDA at 47.2 MMT and old crop of 46.5 MMT/47.0 MMT USDA. Overall, the previous hot/dry conditions across southern growing areas are expected to prevent a new record crop from being seen this year, but overall production and demand ideas are now seen mostly steady with last year’s record levels. For the products, the attaché sees new crop SBM production at 35.5 MMT vs 36.0 MMT last year (USDA 36.5 MMT new crop/36.4 MMT last year) and exports at 16.0 MMT vs 16.8 MMT last year (USDA 16.9 MMT new crop/17.3 MMT old) on a local marketing year basis, while soybean oil production is
estimated at 9.2 MMT vs 9.3 MMT last year (USDA 9.1 MMT/9.1 MMT) and exports at 1.65 MMT vs 1.75 MMT old crop (USDA 1.55/1.775 MMT).
 The Argentine forecast continues to add rain amounts across all key ag-producing areas through the 15-day outlook period. Widespread 2-4†rains are expected through the 10-day outlook, with rains continuing in the 11-15 day period, as well.
 Malaysian palm oil futures were sharply higher overnight after an official with Indonesia’s palm oil association GAPKI said he believes a plan is in the works by the Indonesian government to restrict palm oil exports by as much as 20%, without providing additional details. Government trade ministry officials have denied this is the case saying, “So far, there are no new rules other than what have been announced…†referring to yesterday’s reported requirement for exporters to obtain export permits and for producers to report how much palm oil is being supplied into the domestic market for the next six months.
 APK-Inform further raised their estimate of Ukraine’s corn crop to 39.9 MMT from 37.8 MMT previously, still below USDA’s 42.0 MMT, but up sharply from last year’s 30.3 MMT and easily a new record. USDA currently estimates their corn exports at a record 33.5 MMT vs 23.9 MMT last year (30.3 MMT previous record).
 With harvest complete, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange put the final 2021/22 Argentine wheat crop at 21.8 MMT, solidly above the USDA’s last estimate of 20.5 MMT, up sharply from last year’s 17.6 MMT and easily setting in a new record in exceeding 2019’s 19.8 MMT crop (USDA)/19.0 MMT BAGE.
ï‚· Iran tendered for an unspecified amount of milling wheat for Feb/Mar with offers due by tomorrow. Their purchase of 240k tonnes of wheat last week was expected to be sourced by Russia and/or Germany.
ï‚· There were no USDA sales announcements this morning.
 Yesterday’s NOPA soybean crush data showed December crush higher than expected and easily a new record, as were end Dec soybean oil stocks coming in above the range of market ideas and the highest in 9 years. For full details, see our Market Insights post at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/46362.