Korea’s corn buyers look for bargains as KFA buy tender goes unfilled

A tender from the Korea Feed Association has gone unfilled Friday, as expectations of a massive corn crop emerging from the US sees buying sentiment shift lower.

The tender was for up to 65,000 mt of corn into the ports of Busan and Ulsan in the south of the country, for delivery between January 20 and February 8, data from market sources said.

“It was quite a forward position… they thought it was time to test their luck; the [USDA] report makes them a bit bearish,” one market source said of KFA.

A number of the cargoes were said to be sourced from South America with at least five cargoes shown ranging in price from around $187.86/mt, to $188.30/mt, according to market sources.

That is in line with prices heard for other recent tenders, according to the source, but with the USDA revealing a substantial upwards revision of the US corn crop in its November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), released Thursday, there is no shortage of corn in the world.

“They had paid prices at the same levels as offered to them, and they’re probably expecting them to be lower,” the source said.

Thursday’s WASDE report had been widely expected to push up the US corn yields for the current crop, and upwardly revise the production levels.

The report, when it came, surpassed even the highest expectations with yields set at 175.4 bushels per acre, and production topping 14.578 billion bushels – values on the CBOT front month contract plunged over 6 cents/bu to close at $3.415/bu.