North Gower Grains

Thursday, March 12, 2026, 7:20 am

Wednesday was a nice positive day for our markets.  Spot corn closed up 8, spot soybeans closed up 12 1/4, harvest winter wheat closed up 2 1/2 and harvest spring wheat closed up 2 1/2.  In the overnight trade all of our markets remain on the positive side.  Oil closed up $3.80 yesterday at $87.25 per barrel.  It is stronger in trading again this morning with it now valued at $91.33 per barrel.  Our dollar has traded between a low of $0.735 US and a high of $0.737 US over the last 24 hours.  This morning it is right in the middle of the range with it currently valued at $0.736 US.

Soybean prices jumped up again yesterday with thoughts that the US administration should soon be announcing their new biodiesel targets for the coming year.  There is much optimism that the new targets will be much higher than previous announcements and this will spur on demand for soybean oil which results in more soybean demand.  We should note though that the USDA did decrease slightly soybean oil usage with the WASDE report this week.  This was somewhat of a surprise that traders just seem to be ignoring.

Ethanol production in the US increased by 2.8% last week to come in at 1.126 million barrels per day.  This was an 8 week high in production and was also tied for the 3^rd highest weekly production on record.  Ethanol consumption is also expected to be supported when the new biofuels regulations come into effect in the US.

Crude oil prices did fall for part of the trading day yesterday after the official announcement was made for the International Energy Agency stated that they would be releasing 400 million barrels of oil into the marketplace.  No specific dates for the release of this oil were included in the announcement.  After an initial decrease prices rose again on fears of production issues from the current war against Iran.

Cargill has paused new soybean shipments to China out of Brazil due to a new inspection regime implemented on those exports.  China had asked Brazilian authorities to put in a specific inspection program with stricter pest and weed restrictions and the exporters are having trouble meeting them.  What impact this will have on soybean prices or whether it will be a short term or a long term event is yet to be seen.  However, any decrease in exports out of Brazil should be positive for soybeans from North America.

Looking at some world prices currently soybeans from Brazil are about $1.70 per bushel less expensive than soybeans from the US.  Corn from Argentina is about $0.20 per bushel less expensive than corn from the US and finally wheat from the US is about $1.25 more expensive then wheat from Russia.  It seems that the price increase over the last week was limited to North America and has not taken hold worldwide.