South Korea back for US corn as NOFI books 3 panamax, one wheat

South Korea’s Nonghyup Feed company has reportedly booked over 200,000 mt of US feed corn, and one cargo of wheat after tendering for 270,000 mt of animal feed, market sources said Friday.

The news comes just days after KOCOPIA was said to have cancelled its tender for 165,000 mt of corn after finding the offer prices too high.

The corn will arrive in three shipments the first due to arrive by May 1, with 68,000 mt delivered from ADM at $199/mt C+F, with the second due to arrive by May 10, and the third by May 17.

The second two cargos were sold by Pan Ocean at similar levels to the first cargo, with the wheat cargo said to have been supplied by ETG.

“They sold it with worldwide options, but we can assume it should be PNW or maybe eastern Europe,” one trader said of the supply options.

The US has seen a strong performance in export markets recently, with export sales topping 1.77 million mt in the week ending February 1 as Argentina’s crop comes to an end and while Ukraine corn prices have remained relatively high.

The Pacific Northwest is the most likely origin, according to market sources, with current physical differentials for April loading said to be between 75 cents to 80 cents over the May contract – or about $176.50/mt on an FOB basis.

Add to that approximately $23/mt freight rates from PNW to Asia gives a landing price of around $200/mt.