EU Grains End Mixed In Sideways Trade

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 19:52 | Categorized as

20/11/13 -- EU grains closed mixed, with Nov 13 London wheat ending down GBP0.50tonne at GBP163.50/tonne, Jan 14 Paris wheat finishing EUR1.75/tonne firmer at EUR205.50/tonne, Jan 14 Paris corn EUR1.25/tonne steadier at EUR174.00/tonne, whilst Feb 14 Paris rapeseed rose EUR1.50/tonne to close at EUR373.75/tonne.

The sideways pattern that has prevailed for several weeks now still remains, with fresh news relatively limited. Demand for EU wheat is good, but the failure at yesterday's Egyptian tender is a reminder that other sellers are still out there. A weaker euro helped Paris grains gain versus London wheat today.

India is one of them. There are reports today that they sold 50 TMT of wheat to Bangladesh for Dec shipment, and that enthused by the good response to their weekend wheat tended that they intend to offload a further 2 MMT of their surplus wheat stocks onto the market in Q1 of 2014.

There are reports of hail/rain damage to wheat in Western Australia. Nationally the wheat harvest is said to be around 25% done. Australian Crop Forecasters cut their wheat production estimate from 24.9 MMT to 24.7 MMT. Commonwealth Bank of Australia estimated Australia’s 2013/14 wheat crop at 23.6 MMT. Output last year was 22.1 MMT.

The Russian grain harvest now stands at 93.9 MMT off 94.3% of the planned area. Wheat accounts for 54 MMT of that (off 97.9%), with barley at 16.3 MMT (95.4%) and corn at 9.0 MMT (70.4%).

The Russian government bought 29,160 MT of grains for their intervention fund today. That takes the total purchased so far in 2013/14 to 341,550 MT. They are supposed to be looking to purchase 2-3 MMT by the end of the year.

UkrAgroConsult increased their estimate for the Russian corn crop from 10.2 MMT to 11.0 MMT. They now see exports at 3.3 MMT versus 1.9 MMT a year ago and the 2013/14 estimate of 2.5 MMT from the USDA.

Ukraine meanwhile are currently exporting their record 2013/14 corn crop at the rate of 800 TMT a week, according to Agritel. Spain, South Korea and Japan are the main buyers, but Europe too is taking decent volumes.

Wheat plantings in Morocco are behind schedule following a dry spell. The north of the country only picked up 13 mm of precipitation in the Sep 21-Nov 10 period versus 68 mm normally. The 14 day forecast is wetter however. They produced 7.0 MMT of wheat in 2012, up sharply from the 2012 drought-riddled crop of 3.9 MMT, slashing imports from 3.9 MMT to 2.0 MMT this year.

The EU will plant 3% less OSR for the 2014 harvest (at 6.5 million hectares), say Oil World. Farmers are concerned about profitability on what proved to be a difficult crop to grow in 2013, along with the likelihood of a record world soybean crop depressing global oilseed prices next year it would seem.