US corn inspected for export in the week ended December 12 totaled 686,686 mt, a 40% jump from the prior week, but a 22% drop from the same week a year ago, the US Department of Agriculture said Monday in its weekly Federal Grain Inspection Service report.
Since the 2019-20 marketing year started September 1, US corn inspected for export in the week ended December 12 totaled 7.227 million mt, 54% below the same period the previous marketing year and 15% of the USDA's projection of 46.992 million mt for the 2019-20 marketing year.
US export shipments were below the average weekly pace needed to reach the USDA estimate for exports in the 2019-20 marketing year.
US corn inspected for departure from the US Gulf Coast totaled 472,899 mt. Of that, 462,092 mt was yellow corn and 10,807 mt was white corn.
The top destinations were Japan with 138,674 mt of yellow corn; Mexico, with 110,072 mt of yellow corn; and Saudi Arabia, with 72,605 mt of yellow corn.
US corn inspected for departure from the US Pacific Coast were 40,932 mt, with destination to Japan.
Inspections of corn leaving the Interior region totaled 172,855 mt of yellow corn. The top destinations were Mexico, with 156,283 mt of yellow corn, and Taiwan, with 14,493 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 soybeans, at 49%. Corn was second at 27%, followed by wheat at 20%.
Corn is the primary feedstock for ethanol production in the US and the main competitor for dried distiller grains in the feed ration.
