Chicago | Reuters – Chicago wheat slid for a sixth consecutive session on Wednesday, after sharp gains overnight as supply jitters caused by a Russian strike against a Ukrainian port were tempered by strong Russian exports and signs Moscow is open to reviving a Black Sea corridor deal.
Soybeans dipped to one-month lows and corn eased, as pressure from crop-friendly weather forecasts outweigh demand prospects.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Wv1 fell 12-1/4 cents to $6.40 per bushel, after reaching $6.36, its lowest since July 13.
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U.S. wheat futures closed higher on Thursday on concerns over the limited availability of supplies for export in Russia, analysts said.
CBOT Soybeans Sv1 dropped 20 cents to end at $13.21-1/4 a bushel, after reaching $13.15, the lowest since June 30.
CBOT corn Cv1 slipped 6-3/4 cents to $5.00-1/2 per bushel, falling for a seventh consecutive session.
The Russian attack on southern Ukraine early on Wednesday, which struck grain facilities at Izmail on the Danube, underscored the risk of a further squeeze on Ukrainian exports after Moscow last month quit an agreement allowing grain shipments from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
However, wheat futures shed most of their initial gains as the market weighed the attack’s impact on global supplies.
“If Russian wheat exports were disrupted, that’s a game changer. But the game, as far as Ukraine goes, has already been changed,” Joe Vaclavik, president of Standard Grain, said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday that Moscow was ready to return to the Black Sea grain deal as soon as the West met its obligations regarding Russia’s own grain exports.
Cooler, wetter weather forecast across the U.S. Midwest in August continue to pressure corn and soybean prices.
“The USDA yield at 52 bushels per acre is looking more likely to happen. We haven’t had enough weather stress on soybeans to cut that yield substantially,” Karl Setzer, commodity risk analyst at Agrivisor, said.
–Reporting for Reuters by Christopher Walljasper; Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
