US wheat eases after 3-day rally on Black Sea competition

SINGAPORE: Chicago wheat futures slid on Wednesday, falling for the first time in four sessions as booming exports from the Black Sea region provide stiff competition to US suppliers.

Soybeans eased as the market took a breather after climbing to a three-week high in the last session on concerns over dry weather curbing yields in parts of the US Midwest.

The Chicago Board of Trade most-active wheat futures fell 0.3 percent to $4.41-3/4 a bushel by 0331 GMT, after closing up 1 percent on Tuesday.

Soybeans fell 0.2 percent to $9.67 a bushel. The market firmed 2 percent on Tuesday, when prices hit their highest since Aug. 10 at $9.73-1/2 a bushel.

Corn was down 0.4 percent at $3.57 a bushel, having gained 0.9 percent in the previous session.

"Black Sea wheat exports are doing well. Some Texas ports are shut but the hurricane did not cause much damage to wheat," said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness economist, National Australia Bank.

"The bigger picture is that we have ample supplies."

UkrAgroConsult raised its forecast for Ukraine's 2017/18 grain exports by 3.4 percent to 42.06 million tonnes on Tuesday, underpinned by a bigger-than-expected harvest.

Russia is also in the middle of shipping its record crop.

Last week, IKAR, a leading agriculture consultancy in Russia, raised its forecast for the country's wheat output and exports to 81-84 million tonnes and 31-33 million tonnes, respectively.

In the US, disruptions and delays to US wheat exports from Texas as a result of hurricane Harvey will persist for days more, trade experts said on Tuesday, after shipments were wiped out last week by flooded railroad tracks and closed ports.

The US Department of Agriculture rated 61 percent of the US corn crop in good-to-excellent condition, down from 62 percent a week earlier. Analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expected no change.

The agency said 12 percent of the corn crop was mature, behind the five-year average of 18 percent.

The USDA rated 61 percent of the soybean crop as good-to-excellent, unchanged from the previous week.

Forecasts called for dry weather across much of the Midwest for the next 10 days, potentially stressing the maturing US soybean crop.

The USDA on Tuesday said private exporters sold 136,000 tonnes of US soybeans to China, following a string of similar sales announcements since mid-August.