EU Grains Little Changed On The Week

15/11/13 -- EU grains closed Friday mixed but mostly lower, with Nov 13 London wheat ending down GBP0.10tonne at GBP164.00/tonne, Jan 14 Paris wheat finishing EUR0.75/tonne lower at EUR204.50/tonne, Jan 14 Paris corn EUR0.50/tonne weaker at EUR174.00/tonne, whilst Feb 14 Paris rapeseed fell EUR3.25/tonne to close at EUR378.50/tonne.

For the week there wasn't really a great deal of change, with London wheat GBP0.75/tonne firmer, with Paris wheat ending EUR3.00/tonne higher. Corn rose EUR0.50/tonne and rapeseed gained EUR1.75/tonne compared with last Friday.

Strong EU exports underpin the wheat market. A bold showing by France in yesterday's Egyptian wheat tender suggests that competition from Ukraine and Russia has waned, although there still seems to be a bit of Romanian wheat left.

Despite being around a third of the way into their 2013/14 harvest, estimates for the wheat crop in Australia still vary widely. The National Australia Bank today cut their forecast from 25 MMT to 24.7 MMT. Other estimates are as low as 23.5 MMT, whilst some think that as high as 28 MMT could still be on the cards.

All would at least be higher than last season's 22.2 MMT. It seems that whilst WA is in for a bumper crop opinions still differ over the extent of damage done to wheat in VIC and NSW by frost earlier in the season, and also the effect of drought in QLD.

Ukraine's 2013/14 grain harvest is entering the final leg, at 95% complete they've produced a crop of 58.41 MMT to date. Corn is the main crop still being cut, harvesting of that is 83% done, producing 24.87 MMT to date. Both the grain and corn harvests there are set to be records this year.

Libya bought 50 TMT of optional origin (possibly German) wheat for Dec-Feb shipment in a tender today. Lebanon bought 20 TMT of Romanian wheat for Dec shipment.

The Argentine Ag Ministry confused everybody by estimating the wheat crop there at 8.8 MMT, the same level that they forecast a few weeks ago and subsequently withdrew as being erroneous and incomplete.

The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange stood by their estimate for an Argentine wheat crop of 10.35 MMT, and said that harvesting is 6.9% complete vs. 3.6% a week ago and 14.5% a year ago.

FranceAgriMer said that the corn harvest there is only making slow progress, up from 50% done a week ago to 58% as of Nov 11, and well behind last year's pace of 88%.