USDA Numbers Pressure EU Grains Lower
10/11/15 -- It was another bad day for the EU wheat market, led down by falling US prices.
At the close, Nov 15 London wheat was down GBP1.45/tonne at GBP113.30/tonne, Dec 15 Paris wheat was down EUR3.00/tonne at EUR180.75/tonne, Jan 16 Paris corn was EUR1.75/tonne weaker at EUR167.25/tonne, whilst Feb 16 Paris rapeseed fell EUR0.75/tonne to EUR374.75/tonne.
Egypt's GASC bought one cargo each of Russian and Ukraine wheat for Dec 11-20 shipment in their tender this afternoon. The average price paid was reported at $210.41/tonne C&F.
Russia said that their 2015 wheat harvest was 99.8% done at 63.9 MMT, along with a barley harvest that was 99.9% complete at 18.3 MMT (both in bunker weight). They've also reportedly brought in 83.1% of this year's corn harvest for a crop if 11.7 MMT to date.
The Russian Ag Ministry indicated that winter plantings for the 2016 harvest are still ongoing, now 95% complete on 16.2 million ha versus 16.5 million ha a year ago at this time.
Worries remain over the state of these newly planted winter crops going into the ground so late. The situation in Ukraine is possibly even more concerning. Agritel report that less than 50% of many winter planted crops in the south of the country have yet to germinate.
Late in the afternoon the USDA raised their estimate for the EU-28 2015 wheat crop by 2 MMT to a new record 157.3 MMT, and increased export potential to 33.5 MMT from 33.0 MMT previously, and down only 5.4% on last season's record.
The latter comes despite the fact that exports so far this season lag a year ago by 31%. The export pace is expected to pick up in the second half of the year, they said.
Russia's 2015 wheat crop was lowered from 61.0 MMT to 60.5 MMT. Their exports, along with those from Ukraine and Kazakhstan were left unchanged.
The Ukraine Ag Ministry said that the country had exported 14.55 MMT of grains so far this seasn, including 7.96 MMT of wheat, 3.47 MMT of barley and 3.06 MMT of corn.
