CBOT corn notches 1-month high, buoyed by crude oil strength

CHICAGO, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Chicago Board of Trade corn futures climbed to a one-month high on Thursday on spillover strength from surging crude oil futures, firm cash grain markets and uncertainty about the size of the U.S. harvest, traders said.

• CBOT December corn CZ25 settled up 5 cents at $4.28 a bushel after reaching $4.28-1/2, the contract's highest since September 19.

• Technical buying accelerated late in the session as the December contract pushed well above $4.25, a level that had acted as chart resistance in recent weeks.

• Crude oil CLc1 soared around 5% after the U.S. imposed sanctions on major Russian suppliers Rosneft and Lukoil over Moscow's war in Ukraine. The sanctions mean refineries in China and India will need to seek alternative suppliers to avoid exclusion from the Western banking system, analysts said. O/R

• Corn sometimes follows trends in crude oil futures given its role as the main U.S. feedstock for ethanol.

• Cash basis bids for corn have firmed at a few Midwest locations this week, reflecting a lack of farmer offerings and uncertainty about the size of the crop, given anecdotal reports from farmers of underwhelming yields.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not released updated U.S. crop estimates since mid-September due to the ongoing government shutdown.

• The USDA also has not published its weekly export sales report this month. Analysts surveyed by Reuters estimated U.S. corn export sales for the week ended October 16, which would have been covered in Thursday's scheduled report, at 800,000 to 2,000,000 metric tons.

• The International Grains Council left its estimate of the 2025/26 world corn harvest unchanged at 1.297 billion metric tons, up 4.7% from a year earlier.