EU Grains MIxed, English Wheat Yields Up 16 Percent Say NFU

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 19:47 | Categorized as

26/09/13 -- EU grains closed mixed, media reports suggest that yesterday's sharp rises based on possible Argentine frost damage may have been a knee jerk reaction.

Nov 13 London wheat settled GBP0.15/tonne easier at GBP156.00/tonne, whilst Jan 14 was GBP0.25/tonne lower at GBP158.05/tonne. Nov 13 Paris milling wheat rose EUR0.50/tonne to close at EUR191.25/tonne. Nov 13 Paris rapeseed was down EUR0.75/tonne at EUR364.25/tonne.

The NFU said that English wheat yields came in at 7.8 MT/ha this year, marginally above the 5-year average of 7.7 MT/ha, and 16% up on last year's disappointing 6.7 MT/ha. Due to autumn wetness that lingered into the early spring they have the English area at only 1.51 million ha. That suggests a UK crop of around 12.5 MMT, when we add in Scotland and NI/Wales. Defra will report on that early next month.

Ukraine and Russia continue to have problems with too much rain. My agronomist chum in Ukraine, Mike Lee, sent me a tweet today to say "it's wetter than an otter's pocket over here at the moment, I wouldn't be so confident about getting all that corn into the shed."

Agritel report that September rainfall in Ukraine was 150-400% of normal. Yet the Ukraine Ministry remain bullish on crop production prospects. Their PM says that they expect a grain harvest of 60 MMT versus 46.2 MMT a year ago.

Their Ag Ministry say that the early grain harvest (excluding corn) is 33 MMT, and the late grain harvest will total 28 MMT. They've currently harvested 36 MMT of grains off 71% of the planned area.

Local analysts APK Inform have downgraded their Ukraine sunseed production estimate from 9.8 MMT to 9.0 MMT. The USDA currently say 11.5 MMT.

Similar problems exist in Russia. Their grain harvest now stands at 75.5 MMT off 74.1% of plan. Wheat accounts for 46.9 MMT of that off 76.2% of plan. Rusagrotrans estimate the total grain harvest this year at 89.0-89.7 MMT versus 75.2 MMT last year. SovEcon today said that they expect that Russia's wheat exports of 3.5 MMT in August will be their highest monthly total of the season, and that they will tail off from hereon in.

They peg full season Russian wheat exports at 14.5 MMT versus 17.0 MMT from the USDA.

The Kazakh Ministry said that they expect this season's wheat (including flour) exports to be around 9.5-9.8 MMT.

Morocco are tendering to buy 175 TMT of wheat on the local market. Their 2013 domestic wheat crop almost doubled this year, meaning that their imports will halve to around 2 MMT in 2013/14, according to the USDA's FAS office.

The Australian wheat harvest is now underway, adding further supply to the global market.