Nogger's Blog

09/12/10 -- There's no sign of the "big thaw" yet in North Yorkshire this morning. There's another freeze setting in across the pond that is causing a few problems by all accounts too.

More than twenty ships are at anchor around the Great Lakes waiting to load grain as high winds and icy conditions hamper navigation. Barge traffic has slowed significantly on the mid-Mississippi north of St. Louis sending freight rates sharply higher.

This is restricting supplies of grains from the US interior to the Gulf of Mexico where vessels are also now starting to back up, according to reports.

Elsewhere analysts continue to scratch their heads over ABARE's Australian wheat production estimates earlier in the week.

The chairman of Grain Producers Australia says that the report was out of date before it was released and that "it seriously underestimates the damage to the Australian winter crop from recent wet weather, in both quality and quantity."

ABARE disagree, saying that their report took weather conditions up to Monday this week into account. Apparently Miss Tibb's sister Shelia works for ABARE, I understand.

Egypt are back in the market issuing tenders for both hard and soft wheat today. Japan has bought 51,000 MT of Canadian wheat in an overnight tender.

Good end-user interest, the firm soybean market and a tight supply/demand scenario is keeping the rapeseed market firm. The EU is likely to be around 2 MMT deficient in the oilseed in 2010/11, and supplies from it's normal cheap and cheerful neighbour Ukraine are tight after their own harvest was cut be drought.

Paris rapeseed posted sharp gains yesterday having risen for nine sessions in a row. Front month Feb Paris rapeseed is up almost EUR90/tonne since the beginning of October. Canadian canola futures meanwhile closed higher for the seventh session in eight last night.