Summary: The lineup of ships waiting or scheduled to load US corn is estimated to 880,000 MT (35 MBU). That is up 39% from the previous week. Monday’s export inspections could be 1.415 MMT (56 MBU). That would be up 21% from the previous week. There were 11 vessels to-be-nominated (TBN). That’s down 5 from the previous week. May Census exports could be 7.00 MMT (276 MBU). Sharply lower exports from Arg/Brz/Ukr (ABU) is expected to keep US corn elevated over the 30-45 days.
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As of May 18, there were880880,000 MT identified in the US vessel lineup that were scheduled to load corn. That is up 39% from the previous week (see chart below). A year ago, the lineup was 932,000 MT.
There were 11 ships in the lineup for which there was no tonnage, destination, or commodity cargo noted (TBN). This is down 5 from the previous week. The more vessels that are listed as “TBN”, the more difficult it is to accurately estimate the export lineup for corn. A year ago, there were 25 vessels TBN.
We can document 955,000 MT of corn were shipped last week. We can account for the cargo and destinations for all but 4 of the vessels that were in last week’s lineup but not in this week’s. Therefore, we have added 145,000 MT to set the upper end of the range at 1.10 MMT. However, we expect “actual” inspections to be well above the range or about 1.415 MMT. A year ago, inspections were 1.75 MMT. There were 4 vessels (206,000 MT) that departed for China (see chart below). There are 5 vessels (339,000 MT) in the lineup that is destined for China. There may be other vessels that departed or are destined for China which are listed as unknown.