EU Grains Close

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 18:11 | Categorized as

15/08/11 -- EU grains finished with Nov London wheat up GBP1.60/tonne to GBP164.85/tonne and Nov Paris wheat EUR0.75/tonne higher at EUR199.50/tonne.

The market nudged a little higher "just because" as nothing too bad happened over the weekend for once. European and Asian equities were modestly higher and Wall Street came in likewise.

Ukraine's Ag Ministry said that the wheat harvest there is 98% complete, producing 22.6 MMT, and the barley harvest is also 98% done with output so far at 9.3 MMT. Both figures are well ahead of the USDA's recent estimates of 21.0 MMT and 8.5 MMT respectively.

There hasn't been too much sign as yet of Ukraine getting particularly aggressive in the export market, possibly due to internal tax and quota issues, but that will surely come.

Algeria bought 500,000 MT of wheat of an unspecified origin (which usually means French) over the weekend. Saudi Arabia said that it bought 660,000 MT of EU/US/Canadian wheat over the weekend. I don't suppose that Russia will be smarting too much at not getting invited to that particular party.

Germany's DRV cut their estimate for the domestic grain crop there from 41.2 MMT to 40.3 MMT, an 8% drop on last year.