Wheat futures rallied by nearly 8% on Wednesday and are poised to settle at the highest in three weeks, with tensions between Russia and Ukraine rising the wake of Moscow’s suspension of the Black Sea grain deal.
Russia has bombed an Odessa port in Ukraine for the last two days, and Ukraine bombed the Russia-Crimea Bridge “to start this latest escalation off a couple of days ago,” Jack Scoville, vice president of The Price Futures Group and writer of the Grains and Softs Report, told MarketWatch in an email. “The war is escalating — making any attempts to get Russia involved in a Black Sea grain deal again more and more remote.”
Read: Russia strikes critical port facilities in Odesa after Kremlin halts grain deal
“It is increasingly unlikely that any ship owner or ship insurer will take the chance on any passage of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, and maybe not for Russia, either,” Scoville, wrote in Wednesday’s report. “The world access to wheat from at least one, and perhaps both countries, just got a lot more restricted.
The rise in tensions between the two nations follows Russia’s announcement early this week that it was pulling out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July of last year to help supply global markets with food and fertilizer. The two nations have been at war since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Read: Why Russia’s decision to halt grain deal is stirring global inflation worries
In Wednesday dealings, the most-active September futures contract for soft red winter wheat
W00,
WU23,
rose 52 1/2 cents, or 7.8%, to $7.23 1/4 a bushel in Chicago, poised for the highest settlement since June 26, FactSet data show. December corn
C00,
CZ23,
traded at $5.49 1/2 a bushel, up 15 cents, or 2.8%.
“It’s amazing how quickly the situation can change,” said Darin Newsom, Barchart senior market analyst, adding that news of Russia’s suspension of the grain deal on Monday didn’t immediately lead to a huge change in market sentiment.
Since then, though, Russia has been attacking key Ukrainian ports along the Black Sea, possibly with the goal of stopping all shipments, said Newsom.
Still, “fundamentally, the situation hasn’t changed,” at least based on the “carry” in Chicago futures spreads, he said.
The “carry” in futures spreads is the price relationship between contracts, Newsom explained. “We can measure how bullish or bearish these spreads are by how much carry (premium held by deferred contracts) the market is willing to pay of the total cost of storage and interest.”
Russia’s defense ministry issued a warning on the safety of vessels headed to Ukrainian ports from Thursday, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. New vessels headed to Ukrainian ports will be considered as potentially carrying military cargo, it said.
For now, there is “no sign of increased demand for U.S. wheat supplies,” said Newsom, but we’ll see if, or when, that changes.
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