US corn inspections for export rise 36.8% on week, 2.2% on year

Houston — The amount of US corn inspected for export in the week that ended February 6 totaled 769,390 mt, a 36.8% rise compared with the prior week, and up 2.2% year on year, the US Department of Agriculture said Monday in its weekly Federal Grain Inspection Service report.

Since the 2019-20 marketing year started on September 1, the volume of US corn inspected for export totaled 11.494 million mt, 50.5% below the same period in the previous marketing year and 25.4% of the USDA's latest projection of 45.087 million mt for the 2019-20 marketing year.

US export shipments were below the average weekly pace needed to reach the USDA estimate of exports in the 2019-20 marketing year.

The volume of US corn inspected for departure from the US Gulf Coast totaled 600,093 mt. Of that, 589,094 mt was yellow corn and 10,999 mt was white corn.

The top destinations were Japan with 194,716 mt of yellow corn and 3,054 mt of white corn; Colombia with 189,695 mt of yellow corn; and Saudi Arabia with 61,703 mt of yellow corn.

The amount of corn inspected for departure from the US Pacific Coast totaled 930 mt. Of that, 685 mt of was yellow corn and 245 mt was white corn. The main destination was the Philippines with 538 mt of yellow corn.

Inspections of corn leaving the Interior region totaled 164,151 mt of yellow corn and 4,216 mt of white corn. The top destinations were Mexico, with 153,602 mt of yellow corn and 4,192 mt of white corn; Taiwan with 8,177 mt of yellow corn; and Hong Kong with 1,076 mt of yellow corn.

US corn inspected for exports is corn that has been sold and inspected during loading at export locations for shipment overseas. Traders consider the pace needed to meet the USDA projection an indicator of demand.

The largest share of US grain exports inspected last week was corn at 38.8%. Soybean was second at 30.4%, followed by wheat at 26.4%.

Corn is the primary feedstock for ethanol production in the US and the main competitor for dried distiller grains in the feed ration.

US corn inspected for export (mt):

Source: USDA