EU Grains Mostly Higher Despite Egypt Switch Out Of French Wheat

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 11:37 | Categorized as


12/04/16 -- EU grains closed mostly a little higher, with news of Egypt's GASAC snubbing French wheat in their latest tender seemingly coming too late in the day to make too much difference to the Parisian market.

At the finish, front month May 16 London wheat was down GBP0.20/tonne at GBP104.35/tonne, May 16 Paris wheat was EUR1.25/tonne higher at EUR153.00/tonne, Jun 16 corn was up EUR0.25/tonne to EUR153.25/tonne and May 16 rapeseed rose EUR0.75/tonne at EUR367.00/tonne.

GASC announced that they'd bought 120,000 MT of Romanian wheat (at least that's EU-origin I suppose) along with 55,000 MT of Ukraine wheat> French offers were said to have been around $3/tonne out.

The news may also be taken into context when view alongside that of Tunisia buying at least 400,000 MT of what was probably mostly French wheat in the past few days, along with a 360,000 Moroccan purchase. Algeria, another popular French wheat destination, announced today that they are back in the market for wheat too.

It is also notable to see Russian wheat not feature in either of these last couple of Egyptian tenders. Whilst they remain busy exporting wheat, are they more interested in fulfilling existing orders than looking for new business - there is still an export duty on wheat out of there after all.

Indeed, the HGCA wonder "could the tax be one of the many factors causing farmers to shift from planting wheat to maize in Russia?"

Russian corn production and exports are around double what they were 5 years ago, and both are expected to set new record highs again in 2016/17.

In other news, the French Agriculture Minister pegged wheat plantings there this year (excl durum) at 5.24 million ha (+1.2%), with rapeseed plantings +1% to 1.50 million ha.

The USDA's WASDE and quarterly stocks reports came out late and will be discussed in the Chicago closing report.