CANBERRA: Chicago wheat futures edged higher on Thursday as fighting between Russia and Ukraine, two of the world’s biggest suppliers, hampered exports from the Black Sea.
Corn and soybeans rose slightly after losing ground in the previous two sessions due to expectations that rainfall in the US Midwest will boost crop yields.
The most-traded wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.2percent at USD6.43-1/2 a bushel at 0645 GMT. Wheat has dipped from a two-year high above USD7 a bushel reached two weeks ago, but prices are still up more than 25percent this year. “The key uncertainty is how the conflict between Russia and Ukraine evolves,” Rabobank analyst Vitor Pistoia wrote in a note to clients.
A surge in attacks on ships, ports and export terminals in the Black Sea is hampering shipments, and Ukraine’s agriculture minister said alternative export routes would not fully compensate for lost export capability until at least the end of August.
Rabobank’s Pistoia added that while grain delivery was disrupted, Russia and Ukraine had between them harvested a million metric tons more wheat this year than their five-year average.
While the current disruption should contribute to prices holding up, it “does not yet point to a structurally bullish price scenario, as there is no major production shortfall,” he said.
In other crops, corn was up 0.2percent at USD4.61 a bushel and soybeans rose 0.2percent to USD11.77-1/2 a bushel. A projection by StoneX that the United States would produce 16.160 billion bushels of corn this year pressured prices. StoneX’s average yield forecast of 184.8 bushels per acre was higher than the latest forecast from the US Department of Agriculture.
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