In the overnight session, the grains traded lower with corn down 3 1/4 cents, soybeans down 3 1/4 cents and wheat down 5 1/4 cents. A reportable export sale of 313,000 metric tons of soybeans was reported today to unknown destinations for 15/16 delivery.
Yesterday, the EIA announced that ethanol production decreased 23,000 barrels per day to 938,000 barrels per day. Ethanol production is above last year’s levels at this time by only seven thousand barrels, but above the 4 year moving average by 67 thousand barrels per day. Ethanol stocks are up 609,000 barrels per day to 18.9 million barrels of inventory.
Export sales were on the low side of expectations this week for wheat with 282,800 metric tons for delivery in 15/16. Export sales were down 25 percent from the previous week but still within the range of analyst estimates between 250,000 and 400,000 metric tons. Corn sales were disappointing, booking only 426,300 metric tons in 15/16 which was a 20 percent decline in sales from last week. Corn expectations ranged between 550,000-750,000 metric tons. Soybean sales beat analyst expectations by booking 1,316,000 metric tons which was a 44 percent increase from last week. Analyst’s expectations ranged from between 1,000,000-1,200,000.
This morning the Russian deputy prime minister announced this morning that the government proposes to change the wheat export duty to 50 percent from of the customs price minus 6,500 Roubles per ton. They also announced that the Russia could export as much as 30 million metric tons of grain this marketing year if total production increases to 100 million metric tons.
