US FOB Gulf corn and soyabean basis offers were mostly steady on Monday, with sluggish export demand in corn pressuring values in the CIF barge market.
Dealers said CIF June/July corn basis values were 1/2 to 1 cent a bushel lower. "There's very little demand at the Gulf," one dealer said, adding that interest was also being drained away by cheaper supplies in Argentina and Brazil.
Another dealer said US corn exports are unlikely to meet the USDA forecast. "Export inspections were again lower," he said. USDA said corn inspected for exports totalled 29.5 million bushels last week, down from 40.2 million the previous week.
Dealers said some importers are waiting for new-crop prices to edge lower as weather continues to favour the US crop.
China continued to perplex the soya market as it suspended its ban on several Brazilian soyabean exporters, but stopped an Argentine cargo from unloading due to quality problems.
Beijing virtually stopped all soya imports from Brazil after finding some cargoes tainted with fungicide. The move came after cash strapped Chinese processors were unable to pay for up to 30 cargoes of South American soyabeans they had bought.
One dealer said there was talk that most of the up to 30 cargoes, mostly supplied by Brazil, had been resold to other countries, but this could not be independently confirmed.
He also said there was no Chinese demand for old crop US soyabeans, adding that prices were much higher than supplies from Brazil and Argentina due to seasonal reasons.
Expectations that Brazilian soyabeans would again be let into China, the world's top soya importer, boosted old crop CBOT futures, with July rising 16-1/2 cents to $8.88-1/2.
Egypt's General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) set a tender to buy 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of wheat for July 21-31 shipment. It sought offers from the United States, France, Australia and Syria. Results are expected on Tuesday.
At its tender last week, GASC bought 60,000 tonnes of US SRW wheat at $140.35 per tonne FOB for July 21-31 shipment.
"It looks like they need more wheat for late July shipment," one dealer said, adding that US wheat was likely to face French competition in the tender.
There was talk that rains had affected the quality of the SRW wheat crop in parts of the Midwest, causing buyers to dock prices paid to farmers. There were concerns that some supplies might not meet export quality specifications, dealers said.
The Commodity Credit Corp set a tender for June 28 to buy 21,130 tonnes of US white wheat for donation to Pakistan, which in March rejected a cargo of Australian wheat claiming the shipment was infected with Karnal bunt fungus.