Corn port stocks recently in short supply

Current port corn stocks are insufficient to meet demand. As of August 23, stocks at the four northern ports stood at 2.401 million tonnes; after excluding temporary state reserves, imported and futures corn, the volume available for trade circulation in port stocks was 350,000 tonnes. Among the trade-circulating port stocks, the quantity of high-quality corn available to meet pig feed production was less than 200,000 tonnes, and effective supply capacity was insufficient, especially for high-quality corn. As of August 20, corn stocks at Guangdong ports were about 450,000 tonnes, of which domestic-trade corn was about 180,000 tonnes and foreign-trade corn was about 270,000 tonnes. Based on the current daily domestic-trade corn pickup volume of 10,000 tonnes and daily shipments of 20,000-25,000 tonnes, it is expected that by the end of the month, Guangdong's domestic-trade corn carryover stocks will be only 140,000 tonnes left.

The market expects that demand will increase in September-October, major traders' inventories will fall to historic lows, and combined with feed mills finishing destocking and new grain coming to market very likely being delayed, southern sales regions will see a medium-sized rally in high-quality corn in September-October, with an increase possibly above 100 yuan/tonne, and Guangdong's high-quality pig feed corn price is expected to climb to the 2,550-2,600 yuan/tonne range.