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The corn prices had been stable for various reasons, including lack of old crop stocks, an expected delay in harvesting, and stable demand from Turkish buyers, which was also adding support to the price.
But since the end of September, Fastmarkets’ price assessment for corn, cif Marmara, Turkey, has fallen. It was $233 per tonne on October 7 compared with $237 per tonne on September 24. This has come alongside drops in both domestic and FOB prices, but also slowing demand from Turkey with ample amounts already booked.
“Around 28-30 Handy-sized cargoes were already booked, which means around 900,000 tonnes. [So] demand started to drop [along with] the prices,” a Turkey-based trader said.
“I expect another 3-5 Handy-sized vessels to be booked for November, and demand [will dry up],” a Turkish importer said.
“Ukrainian corn prices are declining,” another trader said. “They made huge sales to Turkey, but now demand is silent against abundant supply worldwide.”
The potential total imports for Turkey in the 2025/26 marketing year was expected to be around 3 million tonnes, down by around 44% year on year, but still a decent volume. That would also mean that more demand was expected later, although current needs were covered.
“[The Ukrainian CFR corn price] should go below $230 per tonne, in order to create the courage to take a forward position,” a trader added.
On an FOB Pivdennyi-Odesa-Chornomorsk (POC) basis, the price for corn, fob Ukraine HIPP, has been slowly declining since September 12, down by $6 per tonne to the current $213 per tonne.
The corn CPT Ukraine price was firmer in the middle of September when the trade was trying to cover earlier positions, but has gone down since September 29 by $5 per tonne to the current $204 per tonne for November loading.
With Turkish demand falling away, there are not many buyers for Ukrainian origin corn at the moment. In key destinations such as Spain and Egypt, Ukraine origin corn has been losing competitiveness to US and Brazil origins for some time. Italy is still in the market for Ukrainian corn, but according to the trade sources this was more because the country is buying in Coaster-sized or maximum Handy-sized cargoes, while Spain and Egypt were able to buy bigger volumes.
For Egypt, offers from Brazil were around $238-239 per tonne CFR for December shipment, and Ukrainian ideas might be around the same, Butt Egyptian buyers usually prefer Brazil origin over Ukraine, paying a $5-10 per tonne premium for that origin, according to trade sources.
Currently, US corn was being offered to Spain around $234-235 per tonne CFR for December shipment, while Ukrainian corn offers were around $240-242 per tonne, with even the FOB price down in recent weeks, and freight costs firm.
In addition, trade sources in Spain have said that most of the big buyers were covered for feed grains until January, with more demand expected only if the price were to become very attractive.
Currently, the corn price on an FOB POC basis was around the same as it was a year earlier, when the price did not drop below $211 per tonne FOB. But the market environment was different because local Ukrainian production was expected at a much lower level compared with current crop estimate of 30-33 million tonnes.
“This year, due to the higher crop, corn prices cannot repeat the 2024/25 scenario, and a continuation of a bearish trend looks more likely in the near term,” Christina Serebriakova, chief executive officer of ASAP Agri and Broker at Atria Brokers, said.
But as it was last year, Turkish buying demand was one of the key supporting factors.
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