LONDON/CANBERRA: Chicago wheat futures edged higher on Thursday as Canadian railway operators shut down their rail networks, disrupting exports from North America.
Chicago corn and soybean futures were slightly lower, with prices for both commodities near their lowest levels since 2020 as a major crop tour reinforced expectations of bumper US production.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.3% at $5.45-3/4 a bushel at 1108 GMT, after falling 2.3% on Wednesday. Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) shut down their rail networks in the country on Thursday and locked out nearly 10,000 workers after unsuccessful negotiations with a major labor union.
However, global demand remained sluggish, with China, a major buyer in the first half of the year, forecast to slow its imports. “There’s a lot of supply,” said Andrew Whitelaw, an analyst at consultants Episode 3 in Canberra.
“The Russians are putting in some pretty low offers. That has helped drive the price down,” he said, adding that there was little prospect of a firm recovery in the coming weeks.
In other crops, CBOT corn was down 0.1% at $3.98 a bushel and soybeans fell 0.6% to $9.75-1/2 a bushel. Corn yield prospects in Illinois are the biggest in the Pro Farmer crop tour’s 32-year history and the state’s soybean pod count is the largest seen on the tour since 2000, scouts on the annual US Midwest tour reported on Wednesday, echoing positive results from other states earlier in the week.
The US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday reported a third consecutive day of soybean sales to China. However, overall exports to China have been low amid competition from cheap South American crops.
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