CANBERRA: Chicago wheat prices rose on Friday but were still set to end the week lower as Russia, a major exporter, ships large quantities of cheap grain.
Chicago soybeans and corn also edged higher but headed for weekly losses after U.S. government data earlier in the week showed that hot dry weather had damaged U.S. crops less than expected.
Russia’s IKAR agriculture consultancy revised its estimate for the country’s wheat crop this year to 91.0 million metric tons (mmt) from 89.5 mmt and said Russia could export 49.5 mmt of wheat in the 2023/24 season, 2 mmt more than it previously forecast.
Cheap wheat from Russia helped push Chicago futures down 9.6% in August, the biggest monthly decline since November 2022.
“Prices are being pressured by the northern hemisphere harvest,” said Rabobank analyst Dennis Voznesenski.
“But as that starts to wrap up and we move towards year-end and maybe the Australian and Canadian crops disappoint a little bit, we could see some price support,” he said.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.3% at $6.04 a bushel at 0333 GMT but 2.9% lower this week, its second consecutive weekly fall.
Soybeans were 0.7% higher at $13.77-3/4 a bushel but down 0.7% this week. Corn rose 0.4% to $4.80 a bushel but was down 1.6% this week.
Ukraine is also exporting more wheat than last year despite the collapse of a deal with Russia allowing safe passage for grain through the Black Sea.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that he had sent Russia “a set of concrete proposals” to revive the Black Sea grain safe export corridor.
Looking ahead to southern hemisphere harvests, the Buenos Aires grains exchange said Argentina’s 2023/24 wheat crop had taken a hit from extreme weather.
Data from Canada this week also showed lower wheat production.
In the soybean market, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed private sales of 132,000 tons of U.S. soybeans for shipment to China in the 2023/24 marketing year.
Strong U.S. export demand and concern that dry weather is harming U.S. beans at a key development stage fuelled a soybean price rally last month but momentum faded this week.
The USDA is due to release new crop estimates next week after data on Monday showed that both soybeans and corn were coping better with the weather than feared.
“Bulls will need to see yields decline further to have any hope to bring corn prices up off the mat and resume the last month’s overall soybean rally,” said Matt Zeller of brokers StoneX.
The U.S. soybean crush likely increased in July to 5.527 million short tons, or 184.2 million bushels, analysts surveyed by Reuters said.
The USDA reported export sales in the week ended Aug. 24 of 344,100 tons of U.S. wheat, 1,073,100 tons of soybeans and 1,063,500 tons or corn (old and new crop years combined).
Commodity funds were net sellers of Chicago soybean, soymeal, wheat, corn and soyoil futures contracts on Thursday, traders said.
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