Corn, soybeans continue to outpace expectations on export inspections

Corn and soybean export sales inspections have again outpaced analysts’ expectations in the week ending February 1, while wheat continues to feel the effect of aggressive overseas competition and resurgent prices, USDA data showed Monday.

Soybeans comfortably outdid expectations, with 1.3 million mt inspected for export versus analysts’ forecasts of up to 1.2 million mt.

Corn also squeaked past the range that had been put at between 850,000 and 1.05 million mt, coming in at 1.07 million mt.

For wheat, however, inspections fell just below the range of guesses – 429,000 mt versus a range of 500,000 to 625,000 mt.

However, year-on-year, all three primary grains remained behind their previous performances, with corn experiencing a particularly acute lag.

Current marketing year to date export inspections account for 14.8 million mt, roughly two-thirds of the 22 million mt inspected as of this point in the previous marketing year.

Soybeans are some 6 million mt behind their performance in the previous marketing year, at 34.7 million mt versus 40.4 million mt.

Wheat, despite falling consistently short of expectations in recent weeks, is closest to last year’s performance, with 16.6 million mt inspected this year versus 17.5 million mt last year.

On corn, Japan took substantial volumes from both the Pacific Northwest and the US Gulf – 256,978 mt and 249,033 mt respectively, with Gulf volumes outpacing the PNW despite the longer voyage time.

China and Japan also took substantial volumes of Gulf soybean as well, with China also picking up close to half a million mt of soybeans out of the PNW.

Japan also snapped up the bulk of wheat exports out of the PNW, at 126,607 mt, with Nigeria taking 89,519 mt from the Gulf.