GRAINS-Corn slips from three-week high, but China demand limits fall

Updates prices, adds quotes, changes dateline

KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 (Reuters) – Chicago corn futures ticked down on Monday, retreating from a more than three-week high hit in the previous session, although strong Chinese demand lent some support to the market.

Soybean and wheat futures also surrendered gains from the previous session, pressured by weaker crude and vegetable oils.

“The market has now been discounting poor Argentine soy crop and focusing on Brazil’s record harvest,” said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trade house.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Sv1 was down 0.18% at $14.25-3/4 a bushel, as of0500 GMT.

Corn CV1 slipped 0.7% to $6.38-1/2 a bushel and wheat Wv1 fell 0.58% to $6.84-1/2 a bushel.

“After the last two weeks’ correction, there is limited scope for further downside in grains. The market will stabilize at around current levels as funds have started adding new long positions,” the trader said.

A U.S. planting intentions survey conducted by Farm Futures magazine indicated that growers expect to plant 87.677 million acres of corn in 2023, down 1% from 88.579 million acres seeded a year ago.

Soybean plantings for 2023 are forecast at 89.620 million acres, up 2.5% from USDA’s 2022 estimate of 87.450 million, according to the survey.

Morocco has emerged as the biggest export outlet for European Union wheat in 2022/23 as sales to other destinations have been curbed by revived Black Sea competition after war disruptions eased.

Traders are also assessing uncertainties over the Black Sea grains deal after Russian business newspaper Vedomosti on Friday reported that Moscow could recommend a temporary halt in wheat and sunflower exports.

Later, sources told Reuters that Russia had to halt wheat exports but wanted exporters to ensure prices paid to farmers were high enough to cover average production costs.

Falling prices have sparked a flurry of Chinese purchases of U.S. corn, as the world’s top buyer of the grain scrambles to make up for a slow start to its import program, traders and analysts said.

(Reporting by Mei Mei Chu and Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Sonia Cheema)

((meifong.chu@thomsonreuters.com))

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