Summary: The lineup of ships waiting or scheduled to load US corn is estimated to 368,000 MT (14.5 MBU). That is up 91% from the previous week. Monday’s export inspections could be 535,000 MT (21.1 MBU). That would be up 4.6% from the previous week. There were 32 vessels to-be-nominated (TBN). That’s down 2 from the previous week.
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As of Feb 16, there were 368,000 MT identified in the US vessel lineup that were scheduled to load corn. That is up 91% from the previous week (see chart below). A year ago, the lineup was 682,000 MT.
There were 32 ships in the lineup for which there was no tonnage, destination, or commodity cargo noted (TBN). This is down 2 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 39 vessels TBN.
We can document 390,000 MT of corn were shipped last week. We can account for the cargo and destinations for all but 6 of the vessels that were in last week’s lineup but not in this week’s. Therefore, we have added 75,000 MT to set the upper end of the range at 465,000 MT. However, we expect “actual” inspections to be well above the range or about 535,000 MT. A year ago, inspections were 1.578 MMT. For the 3rd successive week, there were no vessels that departed for China (see chart below). in addition, there were no vessels in the lineup that was scheduled to depart for China in the coming weeks. There may be other vessels that departed or are destined for China which are listed as unknown.
