Highlights
Yesterday morning, the USDA announced 101,600 mts of old crop corn was sold to unknown buyer.
Late yesterday afternoon, the EPA issued its 2020-2022 ethanol blend mandates. The 2022 mandate for biofuels is 20.63 billion gallons with 2021 mandate of 18.84 and 2020 mandate of 17.13 billion. The 2022 number is slightly below the EPA’s proposal in December of 20.77 billion. The mandate includes ethanol at 15.0 billion gallons for 2022. EPA denied oil refiners waivers to be exempted from requirements, (big victory for biofuels), but the EPA is giving small refiners time to meet the 2020 mandate.
The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange (BAGE) raised its Argentine soybean crop estimate by 1.3 million mt to 43.3 million, but BAGE kept its Argentine corn crop unchanged at 49 million.
Wheat was lower yesterday on more headlines about corridors for shipment of Ukrainian corn and wheat.
Andrey Sizov (SovEcon) increased his Russian new crop wheat export forecast to 42.3 million mt, 9.1 million mt more than last year and a record-high export number to go with his record high Russian wheat production.
NOLA urea-sell off continues; 2nd half June barge shipment trading at $475 Friday afternoon. The last time we saw this price was August 2021. The highest trade was $935 in March 2022.
At 10 AM Mountain Time on June 30th, the USDA will release its Actual Planted Acres Report as well as its Quarterly Grain Stocks (inventory as of June 1st) Report. It will be by far the most significant USDA report of 2022 for corn and beans.
Unlike most years, the spring of 2022 has seen a dramatic bidding war for acres of corn versus soybeans. The chart below is the corn:soybean price ratio since January 2020. You can see the new crop 2022 price ratio heavily favored corn the second week of May when it took less than two bushels of corn to equal the value of one bushel of soybeans. December corn made its contract high on May 12th and beans have been gaining on corn ever since.
Export Sales Tracker
Market Data
This morning:
Crude oil settled at $120.26, up $3.39
The dollar index settled at 102.17, up 0.35
July palm oil settled at 6,675 MYR, down 44. The contract high was made April, 29th at 7,229 MYR. Palm oil owns 36% and soybean oil owns 28% world market share.
December cotton settled at $117.90, down $2.20 per cwt. The contract high was made May, 17th at $133.79 per cwt. Cotton competes with soybeans and corn for acres.
July natural gas settled at $8.523, up 0.038. The contract high was made May, 26th at $9.447. Natural gas is the primary cost to manufacture nitrogen fertilizer.
July ULSD settled at $4.2803 per gallon, up 0.0719. The contract high was made yesterday at $4.3504. ULSD stands for Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel.
Rain Days Update
The Western Corn Belt has 3 more rain days in the 10 day forecast than yesterday and the Eastern Corn Belt has 3 less rain daysthan yesterday.
The 6 to 10 day forecast updated every day at: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/
Explanation of Rain Days