-Ideas of China buying U.S. corn/wheat support prices
-Attache sees Chinese soybean imports below USDA ideas
-Brazil’s Santos port continues to operate normally
-Cattle on Feed report Friday
-South Korea continues buying corn
-Acreage survey shows ideas of U.S. corn area higher/soybeans lower than USDA Feb estimates
ï‚· There are widespread rumors/comments in the market regarding Chinese buying of U.S. wheat and corn yesterday, with corn purchase thoughts anywhere from 2-8 cargos and 2-5 cargos of HRW.
 The USDA ag attaché in China sees their 2019/20 soybean imports at 84.0 MMT, solidly below the USDA’s latest official estimate of 88.0 MMT, and rising modestly in 2020/21 to 86.0 MMT. USDA sees this year’s Chinese soybean crush at 82.5 MMT, well below USDA’s 86.0 MMT as the expected pace of the hog industry recovery and coronavirus implications negatively impact domestic demand expectations. 2018/19 crush was 84.5 MMT. The attaché sees a modest increase in crush for 2020/21 to 85.0 MMT. The attaché sees 2019/20 Chinese soybean meal domestic consumption at 64.6 MMT vs USDA at 67.2 MMT and last year’s 66.0 MMT, and increasing modestly in 2020/21 to 66.3 MMT. They see China’s 2019/20 soybean oil imports at 1.25 MMT vs USDA’s 1.1 MMT estimate (783k tonnes last year), but slipping back to 1.15 MMT in 2020/21. Chinese rapeseed imports for 2019/20 are estimated at 1.9 MMT by the attaché, sharply below USDA’s 2.9 MMT official estimate (3.5 MMT last year) and rebounding to 2.5 MMT in 2020/21. The attaché did not mention anything regarding their view on potential changes in China’s soybean import mix between countries moving forward.
 The USDA ag attaché in Egypt sees their wheat imports in 2020/21 staying fairly stable at 12.85 MMT vs 2019/20 estimated imports of 12.8 MMT. Similarly, 2020/21 corn imports are estimated at 10.0 MMT vs 9.9 MMT this year.
 Brazil’s largest ag export port of Santos sees operations continuing normally with specific measures being taken to ensure ag loadings are minimally impacted due to the coronavirus pandemic.
 A survey conducted by commodity broker Allendale showed expectations for 2020/21 U.S. corn planted acreage at 94.6 million acres, modestly above USDA’s Feb Ag Outlook Forum ideas of 94.0 MMT and up solidly from last year’s 89.7 million. Soybean acreage were estimated at 83.7 million acres, below USDA’s Feb ideas at 85.0 million and recovering solidly from last year’s 76.0 million, but not as much as we believe most expect. “Other spring†wheat acreage was estimated at 12.44 million acres vs 12.66 million last year and durum at 1.11 million vs 1.34 million last year. Total winter wheat area was estimated at 30.914 million vs USDA’s January Winter Wheat Seedings estimate of 30.804 million. All wheat area was estimated at 44.465 million acres vs USDA’s Feb estimate of 45.0 million and las year’s 45.2 million.
ï‚· Friday afternoon, USDA will release the monthly Cattle on Feed report. The average estimate March 1 Cattle on Feed is 100.3% of last year (99.7-101.0 range of ideas) and compares to Feb 1 of 102.2. February placements are estimated at 92.4 (89.0-97.1 range) vs 99.4 February, while March marketings are estimated at 105.6 (105.0-106.2 range) vs 101.1 in February.
 Ukraine’s national research institute IAE sees 2020/21 winter wheat production declining 12.5% from last year to 24.2 MMT and corn production declining 10.3% to 32.2 MMT.
 Corn continues to be pressured by expectations for notably slowing ethanol production amid reduced gasoline demand ideas moving forward. While not yet evident in yesterday’s weekly EIA ethanol data update, we ran through several scenarios regarding lower gasoline demand and the potential impact on corn demand in our write-up on the numbers. It can be found on Market Insights at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/39420.
ï‚· South Korea bought another 204k tonnes of corn overnight at $190.99-$192.41/tonne c&f for LH Aug-FH Sept arrival. One cargo is South American/South African, while two are optional origin. They also bought 136k tonnes of U.S. wheat of different varieties for June 20-Sept 5 shipment periods (new crop).
 China’s sow numbers rose by 1.7% in February from January, the 5th consecutive monthly increase. China expects 2020 poultry production to maintain the gains achieved in 2019 in which a 12% increase to 22.4 MMT was seen from 2018.
ï‚· Please see our Market Insights post at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/39435 details on the USDA Export Sales report.
ï‚· U.S. soybean sales were 632k tonnes (23.2 million bushels), within market expectations of 400k-1.0 MMT and were the best in five weeks, as each of the previous four weeks’ sales ranged from just 11.1-15.7 million bushels.
ï‚· U.S. corn sales last week of 905k tonnes (35.6 million bushels) were within market expectations of 600k-1.2 MMT, in line with last year’s same-week sales of 33.6 mil bu and easily met the roughly 21.9 million bushel/week average “needed†pace.
 U.S. wheat sales of 338k tonnes (12.4 mil bu) were in the lower portion of market expectations of 200-600k tonnes and were the lowest in six weeks, but still surpassed the average “needed†pace of roughly 7.2 mil bu/week.
ï‚· U.S. soybean meal sales of 129k tonnes were below market expectations of 150-400k tonnes, but still met the roughly 111k tonnes/week “needed” pace to reach the USDA’s export target. Soybean oil sales were 18.9k tonnes, within expectations of 5-35k tonnes and easily beat the roughly 6.8k tonnes/week “needed” pace, but were the 2nd lowest of the last 10 weeks.