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By 1pm US Eastern time, the September futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange had added 1 cent per bushel (bu) to $3.90 per bu, while the December contract increased by the same amount to $4.13 per bu.
In Asia, futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange dropped. The September contract fell by 23 yuan per tonne to 2,197 yuan ($306) per tonne. The November contract was down by 11 yuan per tonne to 2,157 yuan per tonne.
Taiwan’s major feed purchasing group MFIG has issued an international tender to purchase up to 65,000 tonnes of corn sourced from the US, Argentina, Brazil or South Africa, Fastmarkets learned on Monday August 25.
The Russian government kept corn duties at zero for the August 27-September 2 period, according to an official note published by the country’s Ministry of Agriculture late on Friday August 22. The corn index rose by $0.10 cents to $218.80 per tonne FOB, with the export tax also kept at zero.
In South America, Fastmarkets’ assessment of Argentine FOB premiums for October was unchanged at 105 cents per bu on Monday, while Brazil’s corn FOB premiums for October loading fell by 2 cents per bu to 121 cents per bu, both over November CME futures.
Brazilian corn exports totaled 4.96 million tonnes in the first three weeks of August, compared with 6.06 million tonnes exported in the whole month of August 2024, weekly customs data showed on Monday. The country’s grain exporters’ association Anec projected Brazilian corn shipments in August at 8.05 million tonnes in its latest report.
Brazil’s second corn crop harvest reached 98% of the projected area in the Center-South region on Thursday August 21, a 4 percentage points weekly advance, while a year earlier it was already complete, data from local consultancy AgRural showed on Monday.
The 2025/26 summer corn crop sowing reached 3.2% of the 24 million hectares projected area for Brazil’s Center-South versus 1.6% a week earlier and 4.2% a year earlier.
Brazilian corn farmers sales amounted to 1.2 million tonnes last week, according to data from Agrinvest.
Corn harvest in Brazil’s Mato Grosso has come to an end on Friday August 22, versus 99.71% a week earlier, state agency IMEA showed in its weekly report on Friday.
In the US, Fastmarkets’ assessed the CIF Gulf premiums for September loading down by 1 cent per bu from Friday at 96 cents per bu, while FOB Gulf premiums were also unchanged at $1.25 per bu, both over the September CME futures contract.
US FOB Pacific Northwest premiums for September loading were assessed at $1.31 per bu over the September CME futures contract and October premiums were $1.10 per bu over the December CME futures contract, both unchanged from Friday.
The 2025/26 US corn crop is estimated at 16.204 billion bushels (411.6 million tonnes), below USDA estimates of 16.742 billion bushels, according to Pro Farmer’s Crop Tour national data released on August 22.
Managed money investors in the US corn market cut their net short positions to a 12-week low of 144,650 lots in the week to August 19. The shift came as traders slashed 2,833 short positions, taking the total to 369,715 short position, while boosting long positions by 28,631 to 225,065 long positions — the highest in 16 weeks.
US corn export inspections reached 1.31 million tonnes in the week to August 21, up by 24% from the prior week, USDA data showed on Monday. Cumulative inspections for 2024/25 now total 65.53 million tonnes, 28% ahead of last year’s pace.
US corn and soybean crop conditions slightly exceeded the projections of market participants in the week ended Sunday August 24, while spring wheat conditions trailed expectations, according to the USDA’s latest crop progress report released on Monday August 25.
Corn conditions were rated good-to-excellent for 71% of this year’s crop, identical with the previous week, and up from 65% from the corresponding period in 2024.
Crop conditions of corn were also slightly higher than the 70% good-to-excellent expected by market participants surveyed before the release of the USDA report.
The department reported that 7% of the corn crop was mature, up from 3% a week earlier, below last year’s 10%, but identical with the five-year average.
The USDA said that 83% of the corn crop was at the dough stage, up from 72% a week earlier, identical with a year earlier, but down from the five-year average of 84%.
Corn dented was reported at 44%, up from 27% the prior week, identical with last year and the five-year average.
Export inspections of US corn rose by 24% to 1.31 million tonnes in the week ended Thursday August 21, compared with 1.05 million tonnes the previous week, according to USDA data published on Monday August 25.
Weekly inspections were within the range of analysts’ expectations of 1.00 million-1.40 million tonnes prior to the release of the report.
The largest destinations for the inspected corn were Mexico (547,624 tonnes), Japan (390,300 tonnes), Saudi Arabia (67,539 tonnes), Israel (59,707 tonnes), Honduras (54,192 tonnes), Venezuela (53,596 tonnes) and New Zealand (33,558 tonnes).
Inspections by port regions were led by Gulf Coast ports (634,766 tonnes), followed by the US Interior (413,745 tonnes) and the Pacific Coast (256,814 tonnes).
Yellow corn accounted for the vast majority of inspections, totaling 1.28 million tonnes, while white corn accounted for 29,799 tonnes.
Total export inspections since the start of the 2024/25 marketing year climbed to 65.53 million tonnes, up by 28% from the 51.10 million tonnes recorded during the same period a year earlier.
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