Wheat Contracts Fall Back on Tuesday Amid Ongoing Black Sea Tensions

The wheat market is experiencing a decline on Tuesday morning, with contracts down by 8 to 12 cents across three exchanges. This comes after Monday's strength, where all three exchanges saw gains as tensions in the Black Sea seemed to ease. Chicago SRW saw increases of 5 ¾ to 12 ¾ cents across the board, while open interest was down 3,541 contracts, mainly in nearby December.

The Kansas City HRW futures were up 4 to 10 3/4 cents, with OI rising 1,547 contracts. Meanwhile, MPLS spring wheat saw gains of 4 ½ to 5 ¾ cents on the session. However, attacks in the Black Sea continue, with reports of Russian strikes on a Ukrainian refinery overnight.

The latest Crop Progress report from NASS showed that 96% of US spring wheat was harvested by Sunday, matching the average pace. In contrast, the winter wheat crop lagged behind the 5-year average for planting pace by 4 percentage points at 17% complete, with emergence at 2%. The Export Inspections report showed wheat shipments of 335,253 MT (12.32 mbu) in the week of 9/17, down 29.12% from the previous week and nearly one-third of the same period last year.