EU Wheat Closes Higher

EU wheat futures closed higher Monday with Paris January milling wheat futures up EUR0.25 at EUR131.50/tonne and London January feed wheat GBP0.75 higher at GBP108.00/tonne.

It's December tomorrow and already many sellers seem to have shut up shop until the new year.

Consumers aren't exactly falling over themselves to buy, but those that do still need some cover are finding that they need bid a bit higher than they'd like to entice sellers to part with wheat.

Growers are hoping that the imminent opening of the Ensus bioethanol plant on Teesside will generate some much-needed demand, and are largely holding out for better prices yet.

It is not however written in tablets of stone that they must use UK wheat, although not doing so would cast a shadow over the green ethos used to sell the idea to Joe Public.

In the UK less than 12,000 MT of barley so far offered into intervention as of Nov 26th, according to the RPA. EU-wide it's a different matter with 1.8 MMT of cereals, mostly barley (1.6 MMT) being offered up.

EU weather conditions are generally favourable, probably better than last year in most places, for a decent crop again next year.

Having remained relatively static for the past few months, fertiliser prices have risen quite steeply in the last week or so, with urea up by around USD15-20/tonne.