BLBG:Wheat Climbs to One-Month High as Winter Threatens Russian Crop
Wheat advanced to the highest level in more than a month as winter-kill hit grains in Russia, last year’s third-largest shipper, deepening concerns about global supply amid a persistent U.S. drought.
The contract for March delivery gained as much as 1.1 percent to $7.9975 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the highest for the most-active contract since Dec. 20.
About 9 percent of the 15.7 million hectares (38.8 million acres) of land planted with winter grains in Russia were affected by winter-kill, the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday. About 82 percent of the area is planted with wheat and the rest with barley and rye. Drought conditions are expected to persist through the U.S. Great Plains and spread across most of Texas, according to a three-month outlook by Climate Prediction Center.
“The Russian winter-kill definitely adds to concerns, given that supply is already tight,” Joyce Liu, an analyst at Phillip Futures Pte., said by phone from Singapore today. “The sharp rebound in U.S. exports, together with conditions of winter-wheat crops across the major exporting countries in the northern hemisphere, are pushing prices higher.”
U.S. export sales, the world’s biggest, more than doubled to 536,166 metric tons in the week ended Jan. 10, from a week earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Jan. 17. That takes total sales for delivery in the year through May 31 to 19.85 million tons, including the 14 million tons that have already been shipped.
Corn for March delivery gained as much as 0.9 percent to $7.34 a bushel, near the highest level since December, and last traded at $7.33 a bushel.
Soybeans for March delivery climbed to as high as $14.4725 a bushel, also near a one-month high. It last traded at $14.385 a bushel, up 0.7 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
