EU Grains Mostly Lower To Start Week, Falling Equities And Crude Weigh

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 19:03 | Categorized as

14/12/15 -- EU grains began the week mostly lower. Global commodity and equity markets remain nervous, keeping grains on the back foot. The FTSE 100 closed at a 10-week low on Friday and topped that with a 3-year closing low tonight, weighed on by slumping crude oil and ahead of an expected US Fed interest rate rise on Wednesday.

At the close, Jan 16 London wheat was down GBP0.30/tonne at GBP112.40/tonne, Mar 16 Paris wheat fell EUR0.75/tonne to EUR175.50/tonne, Jan 16 Paris corn was EUR1.00/tonne lower at EUR163.50/tonne, whilst Feb 16 Paris rapeseed was up EUR3.00/tonne to EUR375.50/tonne.

Ukraine said that their 2015 grain harvest is 99% complete at 60.84 MMT, including nearly 23 MMT of corn. APK Inform said that Ukraine's seaports had raised their exports efforts significantly last week, up from 322.2 TMT the previous week to 828.5 TMT, including 255.3 TMT of wheat, 459.6 TMT of corn and 113.6 TMT of barley.

The Ukraine Ag Ministry said that the nation had exported 18.71 MMT of grains so far this season (Jul 1 to Dec 11), including 9.34 MMT of wheat, 5.4 MMT of corn and 3.95 MMT of barley.

They forecast full season exports in 2015/16 at a record 36.8 MMT, up 6.4% versus a year ago. Total wheat exports last season were 11.23 MMT, with those for corn at 18.84 MMT and barley at 4.46 MMT.

Ukraine's winter planting works for the 2016 harvest are complete on 6.74 million ha, or 91% of the planned area. That includes 5.68 million ha (92%) of wheat and 913k ha (87%) of the originally intended winter barley area.

Winter grain emergence in Ukraine is said to be running at 86% (or 5.8 million ha), and of that 67% is said to be in good to satisfactory condition and 33% weak/thinned.

In addition a similar proportion of winter OSR has emerged (88%, or 570.8k ha), with 67.5% rated good to satisfactory and 32.5% weak/thinned.

Russia's seaports meanwhile increased their exports last week to 635.9 TMT from 370.2 TMT the previous week. That included 496 TMT of wheat, 100.2 TMT of corn and 36.7 TMT of barley.

Russia's total season to date grain exports (to Dec 9) are 17.80 MMT, down 6% on a year ago. That includes 13.39 MMT of wheat, 1.44 MMT of corn and 2.82 MMT of barley.

The EU Commission's MARS unit said that: "Temperatures since the end of November have been significantly higher than average in large areas of central (Czech Republic, Germany), eastern (Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus) and northern Europe (Denmark, Poland Sweden, Finland and the Baltic countries).

"Winter crops were prevented from gaining frost tolerance due to the mild temperatures in these regions, and are now potentially exposed to frost kill if temperatures abruptly move to seasonal values - even though this is not forecast for the coming days.

"In the United Kingdom and Ireland, overly wet conditions have persisted since November and will continue in the coming week, according to the weather forecast," they added.