Fundamentally Speaking

There is some surprise that USDA is still hesitant to really lower South American corn production.

There is still time for the crop to pull a rabbit out of its hat with the March WASDE report showing Brazil unchanged at 114 million metric tons (mmt) and Argentina lowered just 1 mmt to 53 mmt and the export forecast for both were also unchanged.

Yet corn exports were raised for the U.S. by 75 million bushels (mb)to 2.50 billion bushels (bb) and this is no doubt linked to the reduction in Ukraine's corn exports by 6 mmt to 27 mmt.

With no Ukrainian corn moving through ports and what could be more substantial reductions of South American corn production in subsequent WASDE reports if conditions warrant such a move, this may not be the last of increases seen for 2021/22 U.S. corn export projections.

Along these lines this graphic shows U.S corn export sales and shipments in million bushels as of the first week in March and as percent of the USDA March WASDE export projection.

The figures in the yellow boxes are the change in the USDA corn export projection from that March WASDE to the final estimate.

The current cumulative sales total at 1.976 bb is the second highest ever next to last year's figure and at 79.0% of the March 2022 WASDE estimate of 2.50 bb it appears the third highest ever next to the 92.6% pace seen in the 2013/14 season.

This resulted in the USDA final export projection that year being 295 mb higher than the March 2014 WASDE projection and last year's 90.0% which resulted in the USDA final export projection a year ago being 153 mb higher than the March 2021 WASDE projection.

As of the beginning of this month we have also shipped 1.084 bb, the second highest amount ever next to last year but this is just 43.3% of the March WASDE estimate which is just slightly lower than the average of 45.4%

(c) Copyright 2022 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.