US Export Sales and Shipments: A Question of Supplies

• Most USDA reports provide more entertainment than information for those of us who sit back and watch everyone else get all worked up over imaginary numbers. 
• However, the weekly export sales and shipments update gives us some valuable data we can use to track the pace of export demand, as long as we don't include USDA's estimates. 
• The common problem for US corn, soybean, and all wheat shipments looks to be finding supplies to meet the projected shipments over the balance of their respective marketing years. 

As you’ve likely picked up on by now, I don’t have much use for USDA reports that do nothing more than fill the industry with unnecessary, and usually incorrect, noise. A case in point is the monthly silliness known as Supply and Demand reports when USDA tends to change its previous guesses to new guesses, or if the economists were bored or otherwise occupied that month just leave everything at was. The bottom line is the numbers are all imaginary, providing some folks entertainment but little real information. However, there are some reports that are useful, with one set of such numbers the weekly export sales and shipments update from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). These are released Thursday mornings, with data for the week ending the previous Thursday. This makes them outdated, and therefore beneficial as USDA is not making silly projections with them. They leave that to folks like me. 

This week’s edition showed total marketing year export shipments of corn at 770 mb, at a point in the marketing year when what turns out to be 30% of total exports have been shipped. This projects 2021-2022 export shipments o 2.568 bb, down 3% from 2020-2021’s reported[i] 2.636 bb. The US was also showing unshipped sales of 1.006 bb on the books, putting total sales for the 2021-2022 marketing year at 1.776 bb. This was 20% behind last year’s pace for the same week when total sales were reportedly 2.209 bb. That’s a substantial difference, highlighting the fact the US needs to see sales pick up over the last 7 months of the marketing year. This could be difficult given my monthly available stocks-to-use calculation dropped to 9.2% at the end of January. 

The US had shipped 1.336 bb of soybeans, 2% more than the same week last marketing year, at a point when an average of 59% of what turns out to be total shipments have been moved. This projects total export shipments of 2.264 bb, just above last year’s reported shipments of 2.226 bb. Again, the issue is outstanding sales as the US showed only 326 mb on the books with China accounting for 94 mb (as compared to last marketing year’s 108 mb) and unknown destinations 75 mb (131.mb last year). It should be noted Mexico has stepped up, also holding 75 mb of unshipped sales as compared to last year’s 63 mb. This situation will get interesting as winter turns to fall given my monthly available stocks-to-use dropped to 0.2% (yes, you read that correctly). 

The US has also seen an uptick in export demand for wheat, with total marketing year export shipments reportedly 477 mb. This projects total 2021-2022 shipments of 770 mb, still down 16% from 2020-2021’s reported shipments of 912 mb. Outstanding sales came in at 177 mb, putting total sales at 654 mb, 21% below last marketing year at the same time. While this sounds bearish, the same problem of tight supplies comes up as my end of January monthly available stocks-to-use tightened to 23.0%, quickly closing in on half what it was a year ago. 

[i] I differentiate between the FAS reported number and USDA’s demand estimate. Generally speaking, I’m more concerned with comparing apples to apples, and leaving the unicorns out of the equation, so I’m comparing the pace of shipments with what FAS reported shipped the previous marketing year.