* China, unknown destinations buy 1.56 million tonnes
* Unknown destination likely to be China
* Biggest single-day corn sale since January 1991
* China may focus on new-crop purchases going forward
(Recasts, adds quotes, changes dateline from WASHINGTON)
By Karl Plume
CHICAGO, April 27 (Reuters) – Opportunistic corn buying by
China this week, after U.S. prices hit a two-month low and
Chinese domestic prices hovered near all-time highs, ended in
the largest single-day U.S. corn export sale in more than two
decades.
The bulk of the week’s purchases, which could be the largest
since at least 1994, were for grain to be harvested next fall,
when U.S. farmers were expected to reap a record-large crop.
But China’s old-crop purchases have topped U.S. government
estimates, suggesting the U.S. Department of Agriculture may be
poised next month to tighten its 2011/12 U.S. ending stocks
estimate, already at a 16-year low.
USDA on Friday confirmed U.S. corn sales totaling 1.56
million tonnes, including 1.44 million tonnes for delivery to
unknown destinations during the 2012/13 marketing year beginning
Sept 1 and 120,000 tonnes of corn to China for delivery in the
current marketing year.
The unknown destinations do not need to be declared until
the grain is loading, but reports of active buying by Chinese
importers since late last week suggested that most or all of the
corn was bound for China.
China, the world’s top soybean importer, has emerged as a
big buyer of corn from the United States, purchasing nearly 4.7
million tonnes so far in the 2011/12 season.
Including sales to China but reported to unknown buyers,
imports by Beijing could easily top 5 million tonnes this
season, besting the current USDA forecast for just 4 million
tonnes of imports this season.
AgResource grains analyst Dan Basse said he expects USDA to
raise its Chinese corn imports forecast for the 2011/12
marketing year to 5 million tonnes and the total U.S. corn
exports forecast to 1.75 billion bushels.
But China will be more focused on new-crop purchases going
forward, particularly old-crop May corn futures on the
Chicago Board of Trade surged more than 5 percent on Friday,
narrowing the spread between spot U.S. and Chinese prices, he
said.
“These purchases are certainly supportive, but the real
measure of how much support they will ultimately provide is
whether China is buying to cover their needs or simply buying to
build stocks,” said Shawn McCambridge, analyst with Jefferies
Bache.
“If they’re just building stocks it’s going to based on
economics and higher prices is not going to get that done,” he
said.
CBOT May corn settled 4.65 percent higher on Friday at $6.53
per bushel for a 6.6 percent weekly gain for the spot contract
that was the strongest since October.
(Reporting by Matthew Robinson in Washington, Karl Plume in
Chicago; Editing by John Picinich and Sofina Mirza-Reid)
