EU Grains Down on FSU Harvest Results

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 10:21 | Categorized as

19/07/16 -- EU grains finished mostly lower on harvest pressure. Once again concerns over EU production were outweighed by impressive early harvest results in Russia and Ukraine.

The day ended with Jul 16 London unchanged at GBP111.75/tonne, Sep 16 Paris wheat was down EUR0.75/tonne at EUR160.25/tonne, Aug corn was EUR2.50/tonne lower at EUR169.25/tonne and Aug 16 rapeseed fell EUR0.50/tonne to EUR360.00/tonne.

"European weather fears have supported global wheat futures in the past couple of days. Concerns for French wheat in particular, currently rated in especially poor condition, relate both to yields and quality of the crop. However, from a feed wheat perspective the implication is less certain," said the HGCA.

The implications for London wheat are less wheat being around thereby supporting prices, but a higher proportion of what is available being feed wheat which is negative for prices, they noted.

Certainly French crop conditions have dropped like a stone in recent weeks - down 22 points in the good to very good in the last 3 weeks alone for wheat - and early harvest results appear to confirm poor quality as well as reduced yields.

In Germany however things don't seem as bad. DRV estimated the Germany grain crop at 47.5 MMT on Friday, down from 48.0 MMT previously but in line with the last 5-years.

Winter wheat will account for 25 MMT of that total (down 4.3% on last year) and winter barley 9.2 MMT (-4.4%). Spring barley (2 MMT) and corn (4.5 MMT) output will be close to last year's levels.

The barley harvest is underway and throwing up a wide variety of specific weights. The OSR harvest has also begun but it's too early to form a reliable estimate on quality, they say. The see production at 4.9 MMT versus 5.4 MMT for the recent average.

In Ukraine the early grains harvest is 47% complete on 4.5 million ha producing a crop of 16.1 MMT so far. Wheat accounts for 9.9 MMT of that with yields up 11% at 3.82 MT/ha.

The barley harvest in Ukraine is 61% complete at 5.7 MMT and the winter OSR harvest 58% done at 676.7 TMT.

The Russian wheat harvest is reported to have reached 23.3 MMT with yields up 14% at 4.3 MT/ha.

ProZerno forecast Russian wheat exports at a record 26 MMT in 2016/17. APK Inform are close by at 25.8 MMT. Last season's record was unofficially 24.9 MMT.