CBOT wheat rockets to daily limit on Black Sea tensions

CHICAGO, Aug. 26 (Reuters) - Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures hit their daily limit and set fresh multi-year highs on Wednesday on news that Russia is considering stepping up its ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv.

• Russia's strikes could include targets in the city centre of Kyiv, and on critical infrastructure elsewhere in Ukraine after concluding that efforts to negotiate a peace deal have reached a dead end, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing three people close to the Kremlin.
• The new development underscored a pattern of escalating tensions during the war that has caused disruption to Black Sea grain exports and uncertainty over global availability.
• The report said negotiation frameworks had effectively collapsed, while President Vladimir Putin remained unlikely to end the war in response to sanctions or Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries and logistics networks.
• A virtual halt to grain loadings at Russian and Ukrainian Black Sea ports due to tit-for-tat attacks in recent weeks has cast doubt over flows of Ukrainian corn and particularly Russian wheat.
• Two vessels are due to call at France in the coming days to load wheat for Egypt, according to shipping data and traders, in another sign of demand shifting due to war disruption to Black Sea routes.
• Repair works at NKHP, one of three grain terminals at Russia's main Black Sea export port of Novorossiysk, could take up to four months, the company said on Wednesday.
• CBOT December soft red winter wheat WZ26 futures rose 45 cents to $7.48-1/4 per bushel.
• K.C. December hard red winter wheat KWZ26 settled 38 cents higher to $8.08-3/4 per bushel.
• December spring wheat MWEZ26 settled 28 cents higher to $7.48 per bushel.