To the surprise of traders, USDA increased the projection for U.S. corn exports this marketing year, lowering ending stocks in the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE) report.

U.S. feed grain ending stocks for 2013/14 are expected lower with a 150-million-bushel increase projected for corn exports.

Jack Scoville of the Price Futures Group discussed the estimates during the Minneapolis Grain Exchange conference call on the report today. “USDA did throw us some curve balls,” he said. “Even though most of the trade was expecting a pretty neutral report, we did get some surprises,” particularly the magnitude of the increase for corn exports. MGEX crop call with Jack Scoville, Price Futures Group

Jack also talked about wheat exports being increased by 10 million bushels as “railroad backlogs and other logistical problems slow Canadian wheat shipments to Pacific Coast terminals and encourage additional shipments of Hard Red Spring (HRS) wheat into the U.S. market.”

That was discussed on a MGEX call when the Stats Canada field crop report was released on February 4 by Wayne Palmer and Brian Voth of Agri-Trend. “Canada is experiencing a transportation debacle,” said Palmer. “We cannot get grain from the country to the port in a timely fashion. We are so far behind we will likely not catch up until the end of this year.” MGEX Canada crop call with Agri-Trend