Wheat rises over 4% on Black Sea supply woes; corn, soybeans firm

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SINGAPORE — Chicago wheat futures climbed more than 4% on Monday, rising for a second session in three as worries over supplies from the Black Sea region and strong demand underpinned prices.

Corn gained over 1% while soybeans advanced more than half a percent.

“Russia is trying to put more pressure on the world to lift sanctions by sabotaging world food supply,” said Ole Houe, director of advisory services at agriculture brokerage IKON Commodities in Sydney. “And well knowing that they sit on a big pile of food for exports this year.”

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The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 4.3% at $10.84-1/2 a bushel, as of 0226 GMT. Corn climbed 1.3% to $7.36-3/4 a bushel and soybeans rose 0.7% to $17.10 a bushel.

Concerns grew about grain shipments from the key Black Sea region, after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv for the first time in more than a month.

Global wheat supplies have tightened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year curbed supplies from one of the top exporting regions of the world. Adverse weather in the United States has added to supply woes.

Resumption of Ukrainian sea trade is seen as crucial for grain markets, particularly after India last month decided to ban most wheat exports.

Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest corn exporter and the No. 6 wheat exporter before Russia’s invasion, according to International Grains Council data.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday denied Moscow was preventing Ukrainian ports from exporting grains and said the best solution would be to ship it through Belarus, as long as sanctions on that country were lifted.

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths “had frank and constructive discussions” with Russian officials in Moscow on facilitating exports of Ukraine grain from Black Sea ports, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.

Sovecon, one of the leading agriculture consultancies in Moscow, said it had raised its forecast for Russia’s wheat exports in the new July-June marketing season by 1.3 million tonnes to a record 42.3 million tonnes.

Meanwhile, the condition of France’s soft wheat crop declined for a fifth consecutive week, data from farm office FranceAgriMer showed, as dryness persisted in the European Union’s biggest grain producer.

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An estimated 67% of the soft wheat crop was in good or excellent condition in the week to May 30, down from 69% the previous week, FranceAgriMer said in a cereal report.

India has no plans to curb food exports for now, a minister said on Friday, weeks after New Delhi banned private wheat exports.

The government’s decision to ban wheat exports and restrict sugar exports had raised doubts about some curbs on overseas sales of rice as well.

Large speculators cut their net long positions in CBOT corn futures in the week ended May 31, regulatory data released on Friday showed.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that noncommercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, increased their net short position in CBOT wheat and net long position in soybeans. (Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Subhranshu Sahu)