EU Grains Mixed On Day, Lower For Week

17/06/16 -- EU grains closed mixed, but lower for the week.

At the finish front month Jul 16 London wheat closed up GBP0.40/tonne at GBP108.95/tonne, Sep 16 Paris wheat was EUR0.50/tonne steadier at EUR163.00/tonne, Aug corn closed EUR1.25/tonne lower at EUR181.25/tonne and Aug 16 Paris rapeseed closed EUR2.00/tonne weaker at EUR366.25/tonne.

For the week that puts London wheat GBP2.65/tonne lower, with Paris wheat down EUR5.50/tonne, corn falling EUR4.75/tonne and rapeseed ending EUR13.00/tonne easier.

Fresh news is lacking, and the impending arrival of harvest 2016 seems to be enough to keep prices on the defensive even if there are one or two bullish news items out there.

The state of the French crop is one such item, with FranceAGriMer again downgrading crop ratings, this time by 3 percentage points to 75% good to very good (85% a year ago). Spring barley conditions were cut 5 points in the top two categories to 86% and corn ratings fell 2 points to 73%.

They said that the entire French winter wheat crop is now heading, along with 77% of the spring barley. Corn sowing is 99% complete, with the crop 98% emerged and 65% of it having six visible leaves.

Brussels reported 869 TMT worth of export licences being granted last week. That was far better than the 374,000 MT released the previous week.

Saudi Arabia are in the market for hard wheat over the weekend. with the results expected Monday. German wheat may stand a good chance of picking up at least some of that business.

Next week could be nervous with the UK Brexit vote on Thursday. The stay campaign has nudged into a narrow lead, according to the latest press releases.

It wouldn't be a surprise to see the pound do something dramatic Friday/the following week following the result of that.

IKAR said that Russia could produce a post-Soviet era record 108.8 MMT of grain this year, including a record 64.5 MMT of wheat.

A record Russian crop is rarely good news for arable farmers elsewhere.