EU Wheat Closing Comments
Just as you thought that the USDA had finally fallen into line with most of their worldwide crop forecasts yesterday, French analysts Strategie Grains came out with an EU-27 corn production estimate of 53.5 MMT. That's 4.3 MMT down on last month's forecast, 19% down on last year, and fully 3.64 MT below the USDA's revised number from yesterday.
They blamed the reduction on "dry, hot conditions (that) persisted in central and southern Europe through August, disrupting grain filling."
They also reduced their forecast for EU-27 soft wheat production this year by 1.7 MMT from last month to 123.6 MMT, a 4% cut on last year. All wheat output was pegged at 131.6 MMT, 3.7% down on last year and 0.8 MMT lower than yesterday's USDA report.
Overall they cut their EU-27 total grain crop estimate to 270.5 MMT versus their previous estimate of 274.9 MMT.
Ukraine's Ministry said that it had harvested 26.8 MMT of grains, including 14.5 MMT of wheat and 1.2 MMT of corn so far in 2012. Wheat exports appear to have been voluntarily capped at 4 MMT this season, according to media reports.
Kazakhstan said that it has harvested 10.08 MMT of grains so far off 79% of the planted area, yields are very slowly creeping up at 0.83 MT/ha, although still 46% down on last year. That implies a final harvest result of around 12.75 MMT, in line with Ministry expectations.
In breaking news late in the day, Egypt said it had bought 235,000 MT of Russian, French and Ukrainian wheat for Nov. 21-30 shipment this afternoon. That was the world's largest wheat buyer's seventh purchase in a month. Russian wheat accounted for just over half of the volume purchased, although its competitive edge over other origins is disappearing rapidly.
This is their furthest forward purchase from Russia that we know of so far, an underscores their willingness to keep offering wheat, in line with the Ministry insistence that they will not be introducing an "unfair" export tax or ban.
