Chicago Close - Wednesday

Corn: The corn market closed around a couple of cents higher, helped by beans. Weekly ethanol production was 927,000 barrels per day last week, some 12,000 bpd down on the previous week. Ethanol stocks on April 22 were 21.6 million barrels; down 1.8% from the previous week. South Africa cut its 2015/16 production forecast for the third time this season, but at at 7.05 MMT it's still more than 0.5 MMT above the USDA: 6.5 MMT. In March Ukraine exported 2.427 MMT of corn, which is 32% greater than the volume of exports in March 2015 (1.836 MMT), according to UkrAgroConsult. Ukraine said that planting of it's 2016/17 corn crop was now almost halfway done. Trdae estimates for tomorrow's weekly export sales report are 900,000 MT to 1.2 MMT. May 16 Corn settled at $3.80 3/4, down 1 1/2 cents; Jul 16 Corn settled at $3.84 3/4, down 2 1/2 cents.
Wheat: The wheat market closed lower. There's only so much support fund short money can offer when US prices are substantially more expensive the the rest of the world market. Ukraine exported a record 2.7 MMT of grains in April, And said that they'd exported 33.3 MMT of grains so far this season, including 15 MMT of corn, 15 MMT of wheat and 4.1 MMT of barley. ProZerno estimated Russian 2016 grain production 0.6% higher than last year at 105.46 MMT. Wheat could account for almost 61 MMT of that, they say. The medium term weather forecast for Australia is calling for "abundant, above seasonal norms, rainfall from May to July," Reuters report. That's slap bang in the middle of planting. Weekly export sales for tomorrow are only expected to be 75-200 TMT on old crop. May 16 CBOT Wheat settled at $4.74 1/4, down 5 1/2 cents; May 16 KCBT Wheat settled at $4.64, down 2 1/4 cents;May 16 MGEX Wheat settled at $5.33 1/2, down 1/2 cent.