Wasde: US corn exports tick up, but Black Sea adds 2m mt to production

An increase in US corn exports shifted the USDA’s ending stocks outlook for the country but could do little to offset a rise in 2023/24 production elsewhere in the world – all of which contributed to an overall increase in global ending stocks as the USDA revealed the December update to its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (Wasde).

In a fluid update, recognition of increased options for Ukraine’s exporters resulted in an increase in export prospects there and helped push global usage figures higher, but not by enough to avoid a near 250,000 mt build on global ending stocks.

That in itself was something of an achievement, after production figures ticked up to the tune of 1.3 million mt.

Starting with the US, the changes to export figures and the consequent impact for stock levels were the only moves in the balance sheet as exports ticked up by 25 million bushels to 2.1 billion bu (53.3 million mt).

That trimmed ending stocks to 2.13 billion bu (54 million mt), but production builds elsewhere were enough to send futures into the red.

US, Brazilian, Chinese and Argentine production were all unchanged collectively chipping in 848 million mt – nearly 70% of total world production – but Russia and Ukraine added another 1 million mt apiece to take their output to 17 million mt and 30.50 million mt respectively.

That came along with increases for the EU and Egypt which were enough to outpace a one million mt reduction for Mexico, and took global production outlooks to 1.222 billion mt.

Increased exports blunted the impact of the increased production, with the USDA’s forecast crossing the 200 million mt level on the back of increased US, Ukraine and EU expectations.

For Ukraine, the addition of a million tonnes to 21 million mt came as prospects of deep water Black Sea flows increased on the back of a seemingly more stable outlook for the major ports of Pivdennyi, Odesa and Chornomorsk.

When all was settled, corn futures had shrugged off the mild gains seen earlier in the day and had shed just shy of 2 cents/bu along much of the curve, with even the December contract – now in its last days – coming down from 4 cent gains pre-release to flirt with parity to the overnight settle.

Global ending stocks pushed marginally higher to 315.22 million mt, bucking expectations that had looked for relatively little change, to potentially a slightly decrease.