Miller Magazine Issue: 156 December 2022

MARKET ANALYSIS 91 MILLER / DECEMBER 2022 Imagine that we are watching TV. Our attention comes to some movie with well-known casts. We took snacks, cozy cover and started watching. The lack of fresh supportive news and a firmer dollar made an additional down pressure. Chicago corn and soybean prices ticked down, on uncertainty about demand from top buyer China amid rising COVID-19 infections. Wheat prices, meantime, ex- tended their losses, following news of the exten- sion of the corridor for grain exports from Ukraine. But the grain corridor doesn’t work as it should – there are only 1-3 outbound vessels per day – Russians create a picture as they allow Ukrainian grain ex- ports but in fact, they did not. If we compare the numbers of vessel inspections since the beginning of Grain Corridor we will see, that now Ukraine is on the same level as in the very beginning. But what has changed – its volumes. This led to requirement to load bigger vessels instead coasters. BDI fell to a more than two-month low last Friday and posted a week- ly decline as demand for capesize vessels dropped. Rumors of further sales of French wheat to China and of pos- sible sales of northern European wheat to the United States underscored how U.S. wheat was uncompetitive globally. Prolonged drought conditions in Argentina have the country’s Buenos Aires grains exchange slashing its estimates on wheat for the 2022/23 season by nearly 40% to 12.4 MMT. Argenti- na’s Economy Ministry estimates the wheat crop at 13.4 MMT for 22/23, a 39.4% drop from 21/22. Harvest is 10% complete Wheat Show Elena Faige Neroba Business Development Manager Maxigrain