US corn inspections hit 1.3 million mt, wheat and soybean in range

Corn has again outpaced analysts’ expectations in US grains export inspections, posting another major export program for the week ending March 8, according to USDA data.

Inspections were anticipated to top out at 1.05 million mt but reached 1.37 million as healthy demand – particularly from Asia, where Japan, South Korea and Taiwan took over half a million mt through the Pacific Northwest – continued to drive the complex.

Meanwhile, soybean volumes totalled 910,237 mt, at the upper end of analysts’ prediction of 700,000-1 million mt.

Despite fears over US soybean sales being caught in the crossfire of a trade war, China still took just under half of the week’s loadings, with Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico making up the rest of the top five.

And wheat exports came in at 389,358 mt – comfortably within analysts’ estimate of 250,000-400,000 mt – as loadings for the Philippines, China, Mexico, Algeria, and Morocco all took large volumes.