US corn export inspections slump 38%, miss outlooks at 600k mt

Export inspections of US corn were down 38% in the week to December 30, USDA data showed Monday, comprehensively missing analysts' outlooks amid a slowdown at the US Gulf.

Weekly inspections came in at 596,092 mt, while analysts were expecting them in the range of 750,000-1 million mt.

Among the largest destinations were Mexico (175,131 mt), Colombia (146,717 mt), and Japan (132,292 mt), with China picking up another panamax (65,861 mt).

US Gulf ports inspected 262,435 mt, down 31% week-on-week, while the interior container and rail connections handled 181,539 mt, and the Pacific Northwest 152,118 mt.

Volumes handled at both the PNW and the interior market were broadly stable versus the week to December 23.

Despite the disappointing figures, the USDA offered some hope that the figures could be higher than revealed after it revised upwards the volume for the previous week by almost 33%.

Last week's data initially put inspections at 719,031 mt, but the figures were raised to 954,448 mt - an increase of just over 235,000 mt and enough to bring figures back into line with estimates if repeated next week.

The weekly inspections pushed the total inspections since the start of the 2020/21 marketing year to 12.9 million mt, down 15.2% year-on-year.