China’s first round corn stock auction clears 3.33 million mt

The first of two corn stock clearance auctions undertaken by China’s National Grain Trade Centre saw 3.33 million mt cleared out – over 90% of the volume that was set to be auctioned across four northern provinces, data from the centre confirmed Thursday.

The auction, for 3.8 million mt of corn from 2013 through to 2015, was undertaken to control creeping domestic prices and further reduce corn stock levels, particularly for some of the older stocks.

Corn stocks totalling 383,295 mt produced in 2013 and 2015 were all said to have sold out, while 92% of the 2014 volume – 2.9 million mt from 3.2 million mt – was sold off.

Prices paid for 2013 stocks averaged CNY 1,380/mt, with 2014 stocks averaging CNY 1,484/mt and 2015 selling at CNY 1,586/mt ($219.50/mt, $236/mt and $252.25/mt, respectively).

Stocks were auctioned across the four provinces of Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin – with Jilin clearing out 100% of the 3 million mt it had been scheduled to auction.

A second auction will follow tomorrow, April 13, with a further 3.11 million mt set to be sold off in Heilongjiang – despite the province seeing proportionally the lowest sales rate at Thursday’s auction.

Overall, 84.33% of Heilongjiang’s 997,932 mt stocks were sold, according to data from the NGTC.