EU Grains End Week As Net Risers In Choppy Trade

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 14:39 | Categorized as

01/04/16 -- EU grains closed almost universally higher across the entire board. All ended net gainers for the week too, although trade has been choppy.

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 EUR159.00/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.

For the week, May 16 London wheat wheat was up GBP1.00/tonne, Paris wheat gained GBP2.50/tonne, corn added EUR1.50/tonne and rapeseed EUR4.25/tonne.

FraneAgriMer pared back their French winter wheat crop ratings by 1 percentage point in the top two categories to 92% (versus 91% a year ago). Winter barley ratings also came in at 91% good to very good, unchanged on a year ago. Nevertheless this is still a pretty impressively high number.

Spring barley plantings in France were estimated at 98% complete versus 90% a week ago, with 85% of the crop emerged compared to 70% this time last year.

The week ahead has almost all of Europe picking up better than average rains, apart from very far eastern areas. Average daily highs are seen generally well above normal, save for Spain, Portugal,the UK and western half of France.

Grain exports are still pouring out of Ukraine and Russia. The former has now exported 30.2 MMT of grains, including 12.9 MMT of wheat, 13.4 MMT of corn and 4.04 MMT of barley, say the Ag Ministry there.

Rusagrotrans said that Russia could have exported 2.7 MMT of grains in March (up from an earlier estimate of 2.5 MMT), and might ship out another 2.15 MMT this month (up from the 1.8-2.0 MMT forecast previously). Russian corn exports are now accounting for a decent percentage of these monthly totals (28% rising to 30-33% in April).

Looking ahead into 2016/17. the IGC forecast world wheat production at 713 MMT, down nearly 3% form this season. A rise in corn output will however make up for most of that, with a 2.2% increase from 972 MMT to 993 MMT.

World 2016/17 wheat stocks are seen down 3 MMT on this season at 67 MMT, and corn stocks down 1 MMT to 58 MMT.