-CONAB slightly raises Brazilian soybean crop estimate/slightly lowers corn
-Brazilian remaining soybean export potential appears sharply less than year ago/corn slightly less
-French soft wheat exports seen at 4-year low, down sharply from last year
-Decent rains expected this week/extended outlook shows potential risks
Weather models remain in decent agreement for respectable rains to be seen for most of the corn belt late in the week. After that, though, there are now major differences in the 6-10 day outlook, while both models have moved towards the idea a fairly strong ridging across the corn belt in the 11-16 day period. The daily variances in the models creates the risk of increased volatility as midday updates run. An updated summary of trade estimates for Friday’s USDA Crop Production and WASDE reports is on the following page from the one we included yesterday as a result of wire services making some changes/additions to initial releases. Our pre-report commentary can be found on Market Insights at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/40680.
 CONAB raised their estimate of the Brazilian soybean crop to 120.9 MMT from 120.4 MMT previously and their estimate of last year’s crop of 115.0 MMT. (USDA 124.0 MMT this year/119.0 MMT last year USDA), while saying they expect this marketing year’s exports to be above 80 MMT vs previous ideas of 77 MMT and 73.4 MMT exported last year. Based on estimated July exports (see next point), marketing year-to-date exports are 68.5 MMT. This would leave 11.5+ MMT to export during Aug-Jan vs last year’s 24.3 MMT during the same period. CONAB lowered their estimate of the safrinha corn crop to 73.5 MMT from 74.2 MMT previously (73.2 MMT last year), with the total corn crop estimated at 100.6 MMT vs 101.0 MMT last month/100.0 MMT last year. USDA is last at 101.0 MMT. They left their estimate of this year’s corn exports
unchanged at 34.5 MMT, which is down from last year’s 41.1 MMT. Based on estimated July exports, marketing year-to-date exports would be 6.0 MMT, leaving 28.5 MMT to export during Aug-Feb vs last year’s 30.5 MMT during the same period.
 Brazilian grain exporter association Anec raised their estimate of soybean exports from the country in July to 8.0 MMT from 7.25 MMT previously expected, with corn exports now expected to be much larger at 5.16 MMT vs previous ideas of 3.9 MMT. Soybean exports at that level would be down from June’s 13.75 MMT, but still above last year’s 7.44 MMT, while corn exports surge higher as the main shipping window opens following exports of only 350k tonnes in June and less than 30k tonnes combined in April-May. Impressively, Anec’s estimate of June corn exports is only modestly below last year’s record 5.93 MMT, which dwarfed the previous June record corn exports of 2.32 MMT in 2017.
 Following yesterday’s lower-than-expected initial estimate of this year’s French soft wheat crop, FranceAgriMer’s first balance sheet ideas of the year put 2020/21 soft wheat exports to non-EU countries at 7.75 MMT, a 4-year low and down sharply from 2019/20’s 13.6 MMT (revised up from 13.45 MMT previously). 2020/21 soft wheat ending stocks are estimated at 2.6 MMT vs an upwardly-revised 3.0 MMT for 2019/20 (previously 2.8 MMT).
ï‚· Egypt ended up buying 230k tonnes of Russian wheat following their tender on Monday, all at $218.80/tonne c&f for Aug 8-18 shipment.
ï‚· Thailand passed on their tender for 193k tonnes of wheat citing prices being too high.
Weather
Dry weather again dominated much of the region yesterday, with a cluster of showers and thunderstorms bringing rains of .50-1†to the southern ½ of WI and far northern IL. A few spotty showers and thunderstorms produced amount of less than .50†to around 20% of the rest of IL and into IN and OH. Through the end of the week, rains of .50-1†are expected with coverage of around 80-85% to the west of the MS River and around 90-95% to the east. Coverage with the totals over 1†will be around 20-25%. Huge model differences developed in overnight runs for the 6-10 day period with the European showing dry weather to dominate all but the extreme northern growing regions of MN and WI, with a few spotty
showers in IN and OH, while the GFS indicates totals of .75-1.5â€+ to fall with coverage of around 85-90%. A compromise may be the best idea for
now of .50-1†for around 75% of the belt, with some areas of 1â€+ and a slight bias in the north. For the 11-16 day period, both models are
indicating fairly strong ridging to bring very limited rains and well above average temps to the Plains and Midwest. The likelihood/potential of this
scenario developing into something longer-term is debatable as models continue to waffle on idea so until it is repeated for several days in the
models or is in the 1-7 day time frame, confidence will remain low. Temps will run above average for the next 10 days, with most highs in the 88-
94 degree range. Some 95-98 degree temps are likely in MI and the west the rest of this week