Bean oil makes new contract highs last night.

Oops, they did it again. Bean oil exploded again to new contract highs in the early morning hours, as Indonesia’s ban will be in place at midnight tonight on the export of refined and bleached palm oil. With the world extremely short of veg oil supplies, Indonesia’s policy aggravates supply shortages. Indonesia is the world’s largest palm oil/veg oil exporter of 18 MMTs per year. It’s still anticipated that the ban on refined products will not likely last more than 45-60 days, equating to 900,000-1.2 MMTs of lost refined palm oil exports.

In the Russian/Ukrainian war news, which really has no bearing anymore on 2022 prices, it is fully anticipated that it will never be exports out of Ukraine for the rest of this year, but further damage and war complicate 2023 and holds those prices elevated as well. Russia continues to inflict damage not only on Odessa now but including Oblast, as critical bridges have been targeted with rocket strikes to cut off the port city. Also, land bridges to Moldova are being targeted as well.

US corn planter movement in the Midwest is at a standstill waiting for warmer/dry weather. Daily low temperatures in the 20s/30s make it feel like late March more than late April across the N Plains and the northern half of the Midwest. Any planting this week will be slow and in isolated areas.

The upcoming forecast offers three storm systems for the Central US over the next two weeks, limiting seeding with cool to cold temps into May 7. There is the potential of warming in the 11-15 day period to the 60s/70s with some 80s in isolated areas, with the warming comes with additional heavy rain for the N Plains/Western and Central Midwest. There is potential in the forecast for the W Plains to see the first good rain in months with totals of .25-one .25. This rain comes too late to improve yields, but it does stabilise the crop for the NASS ratings, which are the lowest in three decades.

This morning’s cattle market is called mixed to better as live cattle futures performed a turnaround Tuesday off the extreme price decline early Monday. Even though the market had strong positive gains yesterday, it was more consolidated in nature and below chart gaps created on Monday. Support came from alive cash trade that was steady with the prior week at $140, which was fully steady with the prior week, and the North had seen cattle sell for $232 dressed, which was two dollars higher than last week. This reflects that packers are still short bought going into this week until more significant numbers arrive later in May. Box beef prices were lower with choice down 2.43 and select off .29 on the movement of 183 low is at midday. The feeder market failed to find a bid, despite the more robust tone recovery in the live cattle market. It was yesterday’s firmer tone of the grain trade that kept the pressure on feeders with the stronger selling strength in the deferred contracts. The cattle market is at a crossroads, as the heavier cattle on feed numbers from last week are a limiting factor for the summer contracts despite the stronger cash tone nearby.