Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) bought a total of 123,012 metric tons of food-quality wheat from the United States, Canada and Australia in a regular tender that closed on Thursday. Japan, the world’s sixth-biggest wheat importer, keeps a tight grip on imports of the country’s second most important staple behind rice, and buys the majority of the grain for milling via tenders typically issued three times a month. Source: Reuters (Editing by Eileen Soreng)

Ukraine’s corn exportable surplus is likely to fall sharply in the new 2024/25 marketing year because of a significant drop in the harvest caused by poor weather, Ukraine’s leading agricultural producers union UAC said. “We forecast a corn harvest of 21-22 million tons, of which about 5 million will be consumed on the domestic market,” UAC said in a statement late on Wednesday. “The export potential of corn is estimated at 15-17 million tons, which is almost half as much,” the union said, adding that Ukraine had shipped abroad around ...

Japan’s import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia has jumped by 49% in August to 0.59 million metric tons and supplies from the U.S. were down by 41% to 0.38 million tons, year-on-year, preliminary customs data showed. Overall, LNG import by Japan, the world’s second biggest super-cooled gas buyer after China, was up 1% to 5.7 million tons in August, year-on-year, the data showed. The increase in Russian volumes in August was due to the timing of cargo arrival comparing to last year and was not driven by demand, ...

China’s imports of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products increased 1.9% in August to 280,000 metric tons year-on-year,customs data showed on Wednesday. Imports for the first eight months of this year totalled 2.58 million tons, up 51% from a year earlier, according to data from the General Administration of Customs. The data includes primary metal and unwrought, alloyed aluminium. Imports of bauxite, a key raw material for aluminium, rose 34.4% in August to 15.55 million tons. For the first eight months, importswere up 11.8% to 107.86 million tons. Source: Reuters (Reporting ...

Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta recorded a drop in grain exports in the first eight months as shipments from Ukraine fell by roughly half, the port authority told Reuters on Wednesday. The port shipped 20.18 million metric tons of grain in January-August, it said, down 9.1% on the year. Constanta remains Ukraine’s main alternative route for grain since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, as well as its main route for fuel imports. But Ukraine has managed to boost grain exports through its own ports by creating a shipping corridor ...

China’s gasoline exports were down 44% in August from a year earlier while those of diesel fell 29.7%, customs data showed on Wednesday, due to lower refinery output and softening export margins. Gasoline exports were at 770,000 metric tons last month, the lowest since April. That was off steeply from 1.38 million tons in August 2023 and also down from 790,000 tons in July, data from the General Administration of Customs data showed. Diesel exports were at 880,000 tons last month, down sharply from 1.26 million tons a year earlier ...

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has agreed with the de facto leader of Sudan, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, that vital oil exports from the landlocked country could resume through its northern neighbour. Sudan’s 17-month civil war has disrupted South Sudan’s oil industry, which the country’s economy relies on. Four months of work repairing the damaged infrastructure would allow the oil to flow once again. But there remains a question whether the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which is fighting the army in Sudan, would allow the exports to go ahead as ...

India is considering easing curbs on non-basmati rice exports, a senior government official said on Wednesday, as inventories in the world’s biggest exporter of the grain surged and farmers are set to harvest a new crop in the comingweeks. The move comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government implemented a series of farm measures this month to boost farmers’ incomes ahead of elections in two states where growers form a key voting bloc and after Modi’s general election setback. Indiaimposed various curbs on rice exports in 2023 and continued them ...

Ukraine’s grain exportable surplus is seen at 43.2 million metric tons in the 2024/25 season and a fifth of the volume has already left the country, Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform quoted the farm minister as saying. Vitaliy Koval said traders had already shipped abroad 8.76 million tons of various grains so far in the 2024/25 July-June season. The ministry said on Wednesday that Ukraine had exported 8.94 million tons of grain as of Sept. 18. The volume included almost 5 million tons of wheat, 2.53 million tons of corn ...

Farm office FranceAgriMer on Wednesday sharply lowered its forecast of French soft wheat exports outside the European Union in 2024/25 to 4.0million metric tons from an initial projection of 7.5 million in July, now 61% below last season’s level. In a supply and demand outlook, the office also lowered its forecast for French soft wheat shipments within the EU this season, to 6.0million tons from 6.5 million expected in July, now 4.5% below the 2023/24 volume. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; editing by Jason Neely)

Tunisia’s state grains agency has issued an international tender to purchase an estimated 125,000 metric tons of soft milling wheat and 100,000 tons of durum wheat, European traders said on Wednesday. The origin was optional. The deadline for submission of price offers is Thursday, Sept. 19, they said. Shipment was sought between October and November depending on the origin supplied. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Gus Trompiz and Michael Hogan, writing by Sybille de La Hamaide, Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

European Union soybean imports so far in the 2024/25 season that started in July had reached 2.62 million metric tons by September 15, compared with 2.61 million tons a year earlier, data published by the European Commission showed on Tuesday. EU rapeseed imports in the same period totalled 1.05 million tons, against 0.77 million a year earlier. However, the Commission said grain export data for France was incomplete since the beginning of the calendar year 2024, while it was also incomplete for Bulgaria and Ireland since the beginning of the ...

India is prepared to keep buying oil from Russian companies that are allowed to make such sales, since prices are cheap, oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday. Western sanctions on Russia over its war with Ukraine have capped the price Russia can charge for its crude oil, and India is prepared to buy oil and gas at the lowest possible prices from anyone, Puri told Reuters in an interview at the GasTech conference in Houston. “If an entity is not under sanctions, there is no question I will ...

A push by India to make more corn-based ethanol has turned Asia’s top corn exporter into a net importer for the first time in decades, squeezing local poultry producers and scrambling global supply chains. The jump in import demand comes after India in January hiked the procurement price of ethanol made from corn to drive a shift away from sugarcane-based ethanol for blending in gasoline. With the government promoting ethanol in gasoline to reduce carbon emissions and trying to ensure ample supply of cheap sugar in the world’s biggest market ...

Germany will sign two contracts to increase oil imports from Kazakhstan for Berlin’s main Schwedt oil refinery, sources told Reuters. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on Monday and Tuesday, on his first visit to Central Asia as Berlin looks for new markets and sources of energy and minerals in the wake of the Ukraine war. Under the agreement, a monthly supply of 100,000 metric tons of crude oil will be secured until the end of 2025, with a second contract for the supply of up ...