Ukraine, a global leading grain grower, has harvested 37.4 million metric tons of grain and oilseeds from the new 2023 harvest so far, the agriculture ministry said on Friday. The ministry gave no comparative data. It said 29.8 million tons of grain and 7.6 million tons of oilseeds had been threshed. The harvest ends late this year, depending on the weather. The volume included 22.2 million tons of wheat, 5.9 million tons of barley, 396,800 tons of peas and smaller contributions from other cereals. It also said farmers had harvested ...

Global sugar prices are likely to remain high due to expectations of lower output in India, French trading group Sucden said on Friday, adding that prices may trade between 22 and 30 cents per lb in next 12 months globally. “Prices are probably going to stay strong,” Jeremy Austin, general director of Sucden Brazil said on the sidelines of a sugar conference in New Delhi. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj; Writing by Shivam Patel; Editing by Christina Fincher)

Iron ore futures rose on Friday, with the Singapore benchmark vaulting back above the $120 per metric ton level, buoyed by China’s policy support for its economy and after Rio Tinto halted work at a Pilbara mining site following an incident. Lending further support, China’s imported iron ore stockpiles at major ports hit a three-year low this week at 115.92 million tons due to higher discharge volumes and fewer new arrivals, according to consultancy Mysteel. The steelmaking feed, however, was on track for a weekly fall amid persistent concerns about ...

LME copper stocks double Copper stocks held on the London Metal Exchange (LME) have more than doubled in the space of two months. This shows clear signals of weakening demand. Inventories of the red metal on the exchange now stand at 162,900 tonnes, according to the latest LME daily data, after 7,200 tonnes of the metal were delivered to LME warehouses in Hamburg, Rotterdam and New Orleans. So far in September, inventories are up by more than 50%, following a similar rise in August. LME copper stocks have been rising ...

Malaysian palm oil futures traded flat at closing on Friday but held near three-month lows after a third straight weekly decline as weakness in rival oils and concerns over rising supply outweighed support from strong export data. The benchmark palm oil contract FCPOc3 for December delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange traded flat at 3,681 ringgit ($785.70) a metric ton at closing. It has declined 2.8% this week. Soybean futures are falling due to an expanding U.S. harvest and economic worries, said Sandeep Singh, director of Kuala Lumpur-based trading ...

London Metal Exchange (LME) stocks of tin have grown steadily over the summer months and have reached levels last seen in April 2020. The rebuild began in June in reaction to a short squeeze across LME time-spreads but has continued even after the cash premium flipped to a record discount in August. Combined with elevated stocks registered with the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE), global visible tin inventory of over 15,000 tonnes is more than double the level this time last year. The visible shift to supply surplus comes when production ...

An estimated 81% of French grain maize crops were in good or excellent condition by Sept. 18, down from 82% the previous week, farm office FranceAgriMer said on Friday. That compared with a 43% score a year earlier, the office said in a weekly cereal crop report. French farmers had gathered 6% of this year’s maize harvest by Sept. 18, up from 1% the previous week but down compared to 24% last year and below a five-year average of 10%. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by ...

Argentina’s 2023/24 soy planting area will be an estimated 16 million hectares (39.54 million acres), the government said, the same as the previous drought-hit season in one of the world’s top exporters of processed soy oil and meal. While the soy planting area forecast matches the area planted last season, the government trimmed its estimate for the 2023/24 wheat planting area to 5.6 million hectares, from a previous forecast of 5.8 million. “A drop in the area estimate was decided given the lack of adequate rainfall and the prevalent drought ...

Washington urged JPMorgan to “be patient” before the U.S. bank stopped processing agricultural payments for Moscow after it quit a deal allowing the safe Black Sea (NYSE:SE) export of Ukraine grain, a senior State Department official told Reuters. JPMorgan had handled some Russian grain export payments for a few months with reassurances from Washington. However, that cooperation stopped in early August, said Russia’s Foreign Ministry, after Moscow quit the Black Sea grain deal in July. “It was JPMorgan’s decision, and in fact, we had … made clear to the Russians ...

Australia’s wheat production is likely to decline further as hot and dry weather in September, a crucial month for crop development, curbs yields, threatening to tighten global supplies. Analysts have cut their forecasts for Australia’s wheat harvest by at least a million metric tons from the official forecast made earlier this month and said more crop losses were likely if the dryness continued. “This kind of heat has been like taking a blow torch to crops,” said Stefan Meyer, a grains broker at StoneX in Sydney. “StoneX has downgraded our ...

Copper prices were on track for a weekly loss on Friday due to a strong dollar, high inventories and reduced risk appetite after the U.S. Federal Reserve signalled policy would remain restrictive for longer. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) CMCU3 was up 1.0% at $8,272 per metric ton by 1028 GMT. Its fall by 1.8% on Thursday was the deepest daily decline since Aug 1. “Prices of base metals dipped too much yesterday, it is reversing now as investors are buying on the dip,” said Nitesh Shah, ...

Russia’s leverage over Ukraine’s export of grain via the Black Sea will likely erode in weeks to come as more ships are able to leave Ukrainian ports and rising costs could prompt Moscow to reconsider its abandonment of the grain deal, a senior U.S. State Department official said. THE TAKE James O’Brien, head of the State Department Office of Sanctions Coordination, said leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this week discussed efforts to revive the deal, which Russia abandoned in July. Western countries have accused Russia of using food as ...

Ukraine agreed to license its grain exports to Slovakia on Thursday and pushed for a deal with Poland to end restrictions by its neighbours on grain that it has been forced to send overland since Russia’s invasion last year. Slovakia, Poland and Hungary imposed national restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports last week after the European Union executive decided not to extend its ban on imports into those countries and fellow bloc members Bulgaria and Romania. The countries have argued that cheap Ukrainian agricultural goods meant mainly to transit further west ...

The International Grains Council (IGC) raised its forecast for 2023/24 global corn production, boosted by an improved outlook for Ukraine’s crop. The inter-governmental body, in a monthly update, raised its 2023/24 global corn crop forecast by 1 million metric tons to 1.222 billion tons, with Ukraine’s output seen at 28 million tons, up from a previous projection of 27 million. The IGC also trimmed its 2023/24 world wheat crop outlook by 1 million metric tons to at 783 million, with downgrades for Australia (25.4 million tons from 27.9 million), Canada ...

Chicago wheat futures were largely unchanged on Friday, with the market on track for its biggest weekly decline since early August, as plentiful Russian supplies and a stronger dollar weighed on prices. Corn and soybeans were poised for weekly losses with freshly harvested U.S. crops adding to ample South American supplies. “Russian prices are certainly leading the way in price trend. Nearby prices are also getting pressured by export expectations from Ukraine,” a Singapore-based grains trader said. “For the near term, there is certainly no shortage of wheat supply.” The ...