US may struggle to ship enough corn to hit target

America, the world's biggest corn producer, will sell enough of the grain to meet official forecasts for 2009-10 exports, but faces a struggle to get it all shipped in time, a leading academic has said.

Export sales of American corn need to average only 7.6 million bushels a week for the rest of the marketing year, which ends in August, to reach a USDA estimate of 1.95 billion bushels for the full season, University of Illinois economist Darrel Good said.

With sales averaging nearly 50 million bushels a week during the spring, Good believes that export sales will exceed that needed to reach projected exports for the year. However, it is less certain that the entire crop will be shipped before the end of 2009-10, he added.

The weekly rate of actual corn exports has, until late May, fallen short in most weeks of the 40 million bushels needed to hit the target.

He also noted that a rapid pace will have to be maintained if the USDA projection is to be reached. Indeed, levels of sold, but unshipped, corn have risen by 17% over the last year to 445 million bushels.

While any unshipped corn should simply be rolled over and accounted for in 2010-11 data, the impact on market prices of the delays may be less straightforward.

Any unshipped corn will augment year-end inventory levels which, as indicators of the abundance of supplies, have a large impact on prices, which have already fallen in Chicago to within 10 cents of their lowest since October.

The fine health of the US crop and strong pace of sowings, confirmed in official data late on Monday, has been blamed for much of the market weakness.

However, analysts on Wednesday (June 2) portrayed a brighter outlook, expecting demand to pick up, especially for corn. This, as well as upcoming uncertainties regarding the further development of the plants' growth and the progression of the harvest, should reflect in higher prices, analysts said.