Nogger's Blog

23/02/16 -- Soycomplex: Beans closed with double digit losses in Turnaround Tuesday type trade. Production estimates in Brazil seem to be rising. Safras said that nationally Brazil's 2015/16 soybean harvest is 34% complete, up from the average pace at this time of only 21% done. IMEA said that in the leading producing state of Mato Grosso the harvest is 39.4% done. They now estimate production in MG at a new record 28.51 MMT, up around 700,000 MT from previously and versus 28.09 MMT a year ago. Dr Cordonnier raised his Brazilian soybean production estimate 1 MMT to 99 MMT. However, as a record crop looms, there's already a growing lineup of vessels waiting at the ports. "As of late last week, there were 163 vessels waiting at Brazilian ports to load 9.7 million tons of grain. The vessels are waiting to load 7.5 million tons of soybeans and 2.2 million tons of corn. The lineup is more than double that of last year at this time when 66 vessels were waiting to load 4.1 million tons of grain," he says. Mar 16 Soybeans settled at $8.69 1/4, down 11 3/4 cents; May 16 Soybeans settled at $8.73, down 11 1/4 cents; Mar 16 Soybean Meal settled at $263.20, down $1.70; Mar 16 Soybean Oil settled at 30.75, down 74 points.

Corn: The corn market ended the day around 5 cents lower. Dr Cordonnier raised his Brazilian corn production estimate by 800,000 MT to 84 MMT. IMEA said that in Mato Grosso the safrinha corn crop is now 41.8% sown, forecasting production at 19.97 MMT, a 600,000 MT increase on previously. CONAB are to attempt to auction off 150,000 MT of state-owned Brazilian corn reserves today. UkrAgroConsult pegged their early 2016 Ukrainian corn production estimate at 24.5 MMT. APK Inform report one analyst in the country is predicting corn shipments in 2015/16 to account for around 46% of all grain/oilseed exports. The main buyers of Ukrainian corn in 2015/16 will be Spain, taking 24% of all corn exports, followed by the Netherlands and Egypt (12% each), they predict. Crude oil was lower after the Saudi oil minister commented that they anticipate global demand to slow up. Mar 16 Corn settled at $3.62, down 5 1/2 cents; May 16 Corn settled at $3.66 3/4, down 5 1/2 cents.

Wheat: The wheat market closed lower. South Korea purchased 67,000 MT of US wheat overnight. The EU's MARS said that a relatively mild winter thus far means that many EU winter wheat crops are far from fully hardened against a hard frost, should one come along. Apart from that crop conditions are pretty good in Europe with not much tro worry about. Not so in Ukraine, which is expecting sharply lower wheat production in 2016 after adverse weather conditions cut plantings last autumn. UkrAgroConsult predicts 2016/17 Ukrainian wheat production at 17.3 MMT, down 30% from 24.8 MMT in 2015/16. Ukraine's total grain harvest is likely to fall 10% to 52.2 MMT, they predict. Whilst some of the area intended for winter wheat will go into corn, oilseeds such as sunflower and soybeans should also get a boost in acreage. Mar 16 CBOT Wheat closed at $4.48, down 10 1/2 cents; Mar 16 KCBT Wheat closed at $4.46 1/4, down 7 1/2 cents; Mar 16 MGEX Wheat closed at $4.85 3/4, down 7 cents.