Nogger's Blog

11/06/12 -- EU grains finished mixed with Jul 12 London wheat ending up GBP1.50/tonne to GBP173.00/tonne, and new crop Nov 12 ending down GBP0.20/tonne to close at GBP156.80/tonne. Aug 12 Paris wheat was unchanged at EUR208.00/tonne, whilst Nov 12 was EUR0.25/tonne firmer at EUR209.75/tonne.

Early euphoria that Spanish banks had secured a bailout over the weekend quickly subsided as it was soon realised that the European debt crisis is far from over. Attention now is starting to fix on Greece and it's upcoming elections this weekend. The possibility of an anti-austerity victory and a possible eurozone exit, and the subsequent contagion that would cause, would bring far more chaos and misery than advancing Spanish banks EUR100 billion would.

The French Ministry said that winter barley production there will slide 10% to 5.7 MMT, despite a rise in yields 058 5.5% due to the harvested area dropping 15% due to winter kill. In contrast the spring barley planted area has soared more than 80% to almost equal that of the winter barley harvest, they added.

Corn sowing this year is also expected to increase, up 5.7% to 1.68 million hectares. The winter rapeseed harvested area will decline almost 10% to 4.84 million hectares due to similar problems that afflicted winter barley, they added.

There was no word on French winter wheat production potential, but we do know that they exported 13.8 MMT of soft wheat from July – April down 17% from a year ago.

The USDA's June supply and demand and crop production report comes out tomorrow afternoon. For wheat there aren't too many significant changes anticipated, with small reductions to US wheat production and ending stocks.

Following that we have Australia's ABARES releasing their crop production report on Wednesday, with most trade estimates for wheat production there in 2012/13 lining up around 1 MMT below last month's forecast of 26 MMT.