The market is trading lower in the overnight session as the weather outlook shows the Midwest trending wetter over the next 10 days with the second half of that forecast favoring showers in the northern Midwest. The forecast also shows a slightly wetter Iowa forecast over the next 10 days. Yesterday, there were some scattered showers that touched North Dakota and North East South Dakota.
On Wednesday the EIA announced that weekly ethanol output was 1.0 million barrels per day, a decline of 10,000 BPD from the previous week. This is the second time in three weeks that production has fallen below last year's levels. Ethanol stocks also declined, falling 677,000 barrels to 20.85 million barrels. Current ethanol production is running only slightly above last year's levels for the last five weeks which means our current pace is most likely not enough to meet the USDA’s forecast of 5.4 billion bushels of corn used for ethanol. We will keep a close watch on ethanol production in the coming weeks.
Wheat missed trade expectations in this week's export sales report and was down 71 percent from the previous week. Old crop corn sales were also disappointing, recording a marketing year low and falling 60 percent from last week. New crop corn sales came in on the low side of the trading range. Soybeans met trade expectations for both old and new crop.
Weekly Export Sales-
|
Actual |
Estimated |
|
|
Wheat - NC |
145 |
300-500 |
|
Corn - OC |
36.7 |
100-300 |
|
Corn - NC |
438 |
400-600 |
|
Soybeans - OC |
233 |
100-300 |
|
Soybeans - NC |
367 |
250-450 |
On Tuesday the Russian agricultural consultancy IKAR said that it increased Russia’s wheat production to 77 million metric tonnes, up from its previous estimate of 74. The consultancy also increased their estimated range of Russian wheat exports by .5 million metric tons.
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