Corn prices remain under pressure from a record U.S. harvest

the Good pace of harvesting corn in the US, where threshed more than 50% of the area compared with 47% on average, and high productivity confirm the high forecast of gross harvest of corn in the United States that greatly impacts on prices. But low corn prices encourage active export that keeps the market from falling further. Last week corn exports from the US declined by 6.15% to 949,2 thousand tons, which corresponds to the expectations of traders and by 49.23% compared with the corresponding period last year. Total exports since the beginning of the season are already 72% higher than last year's level for the same date.

information about the high pace of exports supported prices, and yesterday, corn futures in Chicago rose 1.5 $/MT to of 145, 4 $/t

In Ukraine, dry and warm weather promotes the active gathering of corn. As of October 22, with 60% of the area harvested 18.6 million tons with a yield of 6.8 tons/ha, which is 45% higher than last year.

But unlike the United States, falling prices for Ukrainian maize are not yet increased export demand, and export shipments significantly less than a year ago.

a Record corn crop faced problems of logistics and availability of warehouse space. Ukrzaliznytsia continues to raise fees for the use of cars, which has already led to growth of tariffs for 150-200 UAH/t. thus the forwarders and traders who invested and acquired in recent years, more than 2,000 grain cars, got another problem - the inability of the Railways to ensure the timely movement of cars to the loading stations due to the lack of sufficient number of locomotives. This leads to a slowdown in shipments and congestion of internal elevators. Against growth of cost of rail transport and a sharp increase in the cost of diesel fuel, road transport tariffs grew by 50%, but to free the grain is almost impossible.

Prices for Ukrainian maize in the ports for the week decreased from 155 to 150 $/t or 5000-5050 UAH/t, and the purchasing prices on the domestic elevators fell to 250-300 UAH/t to 4300-4400 UAH/t, with increased shipping cost.

the Lack of available warehouse capacities and the slow pace of export shipments can cause a portion of the corn crop, the farmers leave in the field and will finally collect at least the appearance of free space in the grain elevators or the ability to send grain to the ports.