Grain futures fell sharply across the board today. December corn lost 9 1/2 cents and November soybeans lost 19 1/2 cents. Though the 8-14 day NWS outlook calls for below normal temperatures, no serious threat of frost is seen on the horizon. Start of harvest in the south with reports of good yields also pressured prices. Soybean basis continued to drop as processors and exporters declined to pay up for limited old crop supplies with new crop on the way.

Last week Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed the Intermodal Facilities Promotion Act. This act encourages business development in several industries, including food production, along freight rail lines in the state of Illinois. As a starting point, a public-private partnership with CenterPoint Properties is established to build an intermodal terminal near Joliet. This terminal is to be operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. This could have an effect on our local grain markets if more containers become available for grain loading in our area.

US national average diesel fuel prices rose modestly in this week's DOE report making the 6th consectutive week that the national average price has gone up. Average on-highway diesel price is up about 7% over that period. Still well below year ago levels. As Zach pointed out last night, increased distillate stocks reported this week and crude oil trading lower should help put an end to this streak.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!
Go ILLINI!

Mike Etienne

9/3/2009

Hello Elburn Coop Blog Users. By way of introduction, my name is Zach Winter. I am the Elburn Cooperative petroleum sales and marketing manager. I come to Elburn Coop with a diverse sales background and a formal education from Illinois State University. It is said that the average adult attention span is about twelve minutes when listening and about six sentences when reading. Hopefully your still here. I would like to talk about the Energy Market. For all practical purposes we will focus on the three key areas which makeup the Energy Market: Distillate, Gasoline, and Crude Oil. While each commodity is directly related in the manufacturing process, they are independently traded daily.
Distillate:
The short term outlook appears to be bearish with consistent loses all week. The Department of Energy reported Wednesday a 1.2 million bpd build in Distillate. The news created a massive sell off, edging close to the 2009 single day record loses of $.11. Demand was reported down 7.3% from last year, with this weeks savings it is not a bad weekend to fill the truck.
Gasoline:
The short term outlook for gasoline is slightly bullish with consistent gains over the past few trading sessions. On Wednesday the DOE report gave a bounce to the gas market by reporting 3 million bpd draw. Overall demand is up half of one percent from last year. Expect to pay a little more for gasoline as we head into the holiday weekend.
Crude Oil:
The short term outlook is slightly bearish. The market appears to be looking for direction as the last two days of trading have produced a total close volatility of nine cents. Crude closed at $67.96 today, as the week closes look for crude to test the July low of $65.25.

Wednesday September 2, 2009

Corn closed mostly unchanged across the board amid pressure from a large crop expectations and some mild short covering of traders. Prices had been lower for much of the session, but finished unchanged as mid day weather forecast put cooler temperatures back into the forecast. FC Stones higher yield estimate out yesterday at 162.7 bu/ac on corn helped to keep the market at bay today.

Much of the same story on the bean market today as well, as the talk of a large crop has seen a modest sell off this week in beans. Old bean stocks continue to remain tight though as processors struggle to find beans, amid a very thin supply.

Chris Spurlock

Tuesday September 1st, 2009

Both corn and soybeans continue to see downside pressure in the market today as weather and outside markets continue to weigh down on them. Corn dropped over a dime today as the weather forecast continues to show good conditions in the upcoming week along with pressure from the soybean market, and crude oil down over $2 a barrel. FC Stone was out tonight with their updated acreage number which has corn pegged at 162.7 bu/ac and soybeans at 42.6 bu/ac. The USDA pegged corn and soybeans in their August report at 162.7 bu/ac and 41.7 bu/ac respectively.

The soybean market plunged 3 percent on Monday because traders were spooked by prospects that state-owned Chinese companies may be allowed to walk away from money-losing commodity derivative trades, although Chinese officials did comment that it won't affect oil or grain trades.

Chris Spurlock

Monday August 31st, 2009

Crop progress out this afternoon.

Corn 69% G/E vs 70% last week and 61% last year
Beans 69% G/E vs 69% lw and 57% ly
Corn Dough 75% vs 57% lw and 88% avg
Corn Dented 32% vs 18% lw and 60% avg

Sep corn gained 5 cents on Dec as spreads work to procure old crop grain for processors and ethanol plants.

Choppy trade expected until September 11th prodution estimate report and monthly supply and demand outlook.

Scott Meyer