USDA Confirms Corn Sales to China
Rumored big sale of more than 14 million bushels is for real, and more could follow.
Bryce Knorr
Published: May 13, 2010
USDA today confirmed the sale of 14.5 million bushels of corn to China, with other officials saying more deals may be in the offing. Two-thirds of the deals announced today under USDA’s daily reporting system were for old crop, with the rest for delivery in the 2010 marketing year.
Officials at the U.S. Grains Council yesterday suggested China purchased as many as 15 loads of U.S. corn recently – up to 35 million bushels depending on the size of the vessel. USDA today also announced the sale of another 6.9 million bushels to “unknown destinations,” though that business sometimes winds up headed to big customers like Japan or South Korea.
Today’s announcements by the government came as its regular weekly summary showed no sales to China. Corn sales totaled 37 million bushels for the latest week, half of last week’s marketing year high and well below trade guesses. Buyers again came from the list of usual suspects out of Asia and the Americas, with a smattering of business into the Middle East also showing up. Actual shipments remain on track to meet USDA’s forecast for the marketing year, which the agency raised to 1.95 billion earlier this week.
China also took both old and new crop beans this week, helping the total for the week reach 17.4 million bushels. That was at the low end of trade guesses, but both old crop sales and shipments remain on track to exceed USDA’s forecast for the marketing year. The agency didn’t changes its estimates for 2009 crop sales in this week’s monthly supply and demand report. New crop sales, meanwhile, are off to their fastest start in history thanks to heavy buying out of China.
While sales continue to firm up ahead of harvest, exceeding expectations at 17.8 million bushels. Amounts still remain small, but some interesting destinations are showing up on the sale sheet due to the highly competitive world market, including Brazil and Italy.
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