Futures contracts of maize on NCDEX may open slightly lower as the government has allowed import of 100,000 tn of feed-grade maize at the concessional duty of 15%. However, the quantity allowed for import is unlikely to offset the shrinking supply. The most-active June maize rabi contract on NCDEX ended 2.2% higher at 1,796 rupees per 100 kg.

Corn futures closed 1 to 3 cents higher on Wednesday, with the late 2020 contracts the strongest. The weekly EIA report showed a 24,000 barrel per day jump in production from the week prior at 999,000 bpd. This is the first time since April 2017 that ethanol production has been sub 1 million bpd for two consecutive weeks. Ethanol stocks were down a sharp 456,000 barrels to 23.992 million barrels. Rail issues continued to plague the Midwest, with stocks record large there 9.348 million barrels. Trade ideas for US weekly export sales are running 700,000 to 1.1 MMT for old crop corn in the week ending 3/29, with new crop at 0-150,000 MT. South Korean importers purchased a total of 202,000 MT of optional origin corn in several tenders this week. IEG Vantage (formerly Informa) updated their Brazil corn crop estimate to 94.5 MMT, up from 94 MMT last time, with Argentina at 46.5 MMT.