EU Grains Mostly Lower In Sideways Trade

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 19:23 | Categorized as

26/11/13 -- EU grains closed mostly lower with Jan 14 London wheat ending down GBP0.55/tonne at GBP164.35/tonne and Jan 14 Paris milling wheat settling EUR1.25/tonne weaker to close at EUR206.00/tonne.

Feb 14 Paris rapeseed rose EUR2.25/tonne to EUR378.25/tonne, whilst Jan 14 Paris corn closed EUR0.50/tonne lower at EUR175.75/tonne.

Essentially we are still trading sideways, with real fresh news very thin on the ground. London wheat now hasn't closed outside the very narrow range of GBP163-165/tonne in 22 trading session on a front month. Meanwhile Paris wheat hasn't finished outside the EUR200-208/tonne range on the front month since Oct 17.

Russia bought 28,620 MT of grains for its intervention fund today. That takes the total purchased so far this season to just over 370 TMT. They originally intended to buy 2-3 MMT by the end of the year, which now looks like being 2-3 MMT by the end of the season.

Their harvest rumbles on, at 94.6% complete, producing 94.5 MMT to date. That includes 54 MMT of wheat off 97.9% of plan, 16.3 MMT of barley off 95.5% of plan, and 9.5 MMT of corn off 74.6% of the intended area. Winter plantings stand at 14.6 million hectares, or 89.4% of the originally intended area.

Russia exported 1.743 MMT of grains in the Nov 1-20 period, including 1.185 MMT of wheat, 411 TMT of corn and 121 TMT of barley. That brings their 2013/14 marketing year to date exports to 13.12 MMT, up 15% versus a year ago.

Ukraine meanwhile have exported 2.8 MMT of grains in the same Nov 1-20 period, and their year to date shipments are 12.8 MMT. They are really hammering corn exports at the moment.

IKAR said that Russia has sold 13.4 MMT of grains for export so far this year, out of an anticipated total of 20 MMT (versus 15.8 MMT in 2012/13). They said that local 12.5% milling wheat prices are up $4/tonne versus a week ago at $288/tonne FOB the Black Sea.

India's PEC tendered to sell 70 TMT of wheat out of the east coast port of Krishnapatnam for Dec 26 - Jan 31 shipment. Bangladesh picked up a lowest offer of $313.92/tonne C&F in it's wheat tender, down slightly on a best price of $314.60/tonne a week ago.

Jordan re-tendered for 100 TMT of wheat, having cancelled a similar tender a week ago.

US markets will be closed for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and will only trade a holiday-shortened session on Friday. Which is another way of saying don't expect this sideways pattern to be broken out of this week.