-Soybean exports higher than expected
-Corn exports at very bottom of expectations
-Wheat exports at bottom end of expectations
U.S. soybean exports, for the week ended 12/17/20, were 2.533 MMT (93.1 million bushels), above the range of market expectations of 1.9-2.4 MMT (69.8-88.2 mil bu) and continued the very strong export pace since early October, while maintaining the impressive and consistent pace of exports over the last four weeks ranging from 89.1-95.0 million bushels. This week’s exports featured roughly 1.5 MMT shipped to China and would reduce their outstanding (unshipped) sales on the books to roughly 6.4 MMT based on last week’s Export Sales data. Conceptually, unshipped sales to China could be closer to 10 MMT still if we assume roughly half of the 7.3 MMT in sales reported as “unknown” are Chinese. Cumulative export inspections of 1.275 billion bushels are up 75% from last year’s 727 million bushels, leaving exports needing to average roughly 23.3 million bushels/week through the end of August in order to reach the USDA’s 2.200 billion bushel export projection vs last year’s 23.9 million/week average from this point forward.
U.S. corn exports last week were 763k tonnes (30.0 million bushels), at the very bottom of market expectations of 750k-1.1 MMT (29.5-43.3 mil bu), down from the previous week’s 924k tonnes (36.4 mil bu) and were the 2nd lowest of the last six weeks. However, exports over this period averaged 33.8 mil bu/week, still solidly better than last year’s 21.6 million/week during the same period, with cumulative export inspections of 501 million bushels up 67% from last year’s 301 million at this time. This week’s activity included 272k tonnes shipped to China, with roughly 7.3 MMT in unshipped sales still on the books (potentially as much as 11 MMT based on “unknown” sales likely of Chinese origin). We estimate corn exports will need to average roughly 55 million bushels/week over the remainder of the marketing year in order to reach the USDA’s 2.650 billion bushel projection, which would be a record pace from this point forward and compare to last year’s 36.8 million bushels/week.
U.S. wheat exports last week of 391k tonnes (14.4 mil bu) were the bottom end of market expectations of 350-600k tonnes (12.9-22.0 mil bu), but up from the previous week’s 263k tonnes (9.7 mil bu) and right in line with average exports over the last seven weeks of 14.3 mil bu/week. However, with last year’s exports this week of 22.3 mil bu, cumulative export inspections of 519 million bushels slipped back below last year’s 522 million for the first year-over-year deficit since early July. It must be kept in mind, though, that export sales of wheat are up 10% from last year, with outstanding sales on the books as of last week’s data of 238 million bushels solidly above last year’s 166 million, so the overall shipment pace very likely will run above last year’s pace overall through the end of the year. We estimate wheat exports will need to average roughly 18.1 million bushels/week vs last year’s 17.0 million/week in order to reach the USDA’s 985 million bushel annual projection, which we do not see as an issue at this time.
