EU Grains Rise On Spillover Support From US Markets

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 20:26 | Categorized as

29/03/16 -- EU grains closed pretty much higher across the entire board, with even London wheat shrugging off sterling strength with aplomb.

At the finish, front month May 16 London wheat was up GBP1.00/tonne at GBP106.00/tonne, May 16 Paris wheat was up EUR2.50/tonne to EUR159.005/tonne, Jun 16 Paris corn was up EUR2.50/tonne to EUR157.25/tonne and May 16 Paris rapeseed rose EUR4.25/tonne to EUR368.25/tonne.

Spillover strength from wheat futures in the US across the Easter holiday helped today, although nothing huge has changed fundamentally though.

Ukraine said that they'd raced to 42% complete already on early spring grain plantings (excluding things like corn and oilseeds). That's mainly spring barley (42% doe) on 808k ha, although it does also include some spring wheat (70k) and peas (117.5k).

By comparison Russian spring grains (mostly wheat) are only 2% complete on 613.4k ha.

Exports from the region reached 289.3 TMT for the week through to Easter Sunday (via seaports), up from 210.7 TMT the previous week, and included 109.3 TMT of wheat.

IN contrast, Ukraine's seaports shipped out an impressive 574.5 TMT of grains via seaports for the week through to Mar 27. That easily bettered 319.3 TMT the previous week and comprised 146.4 TMT of wheat, 423.5 TMT of corn and 4.6 TNT of barley.

The Ukraine Ag Ministry said that the nation had already exported almost 30 MMT of grains so far this season, including 13 MMT of corn, 12.6 MMT of wheat and around 4 MMT of barley. Feb exports alone were a record 3.3 MMT, they said.

Iraq tendered for at least 50,000 MT of hard wheat.

In other grains, the USDA forecast Ukraine's 2016/17 rapeseed exports to Europe at little more than 1 MMT - down 25% due to a slump in plantings last autumn. That would be the lowest for 9-years, says Agrimoney, although they also point out that the USDA's harvest estimate of 1.47 MMT, whilst down versus last year, is still much higher than the 1.0-1.0 MMT that some other analysts are estimating. EU importation of rapeseed from Ukraine in 2014/15 was 1.3 MMT.

Agrimoney also report on a significant drop in EU high protein barley (10.5%+) continuing this year.