EU Grains End Lower Despite German Crop Concerns
04/08/16 -- EU grains finished mostly lower. The pound was little changed despite the Bank of England cutting UK interest rates to a lowest ever 0.25% and signalling that rates could go even lower yet.
The day ended with Nov 16 London down GBP0.30/tonne at GBP127.45/tonne, Sep 16 Paris wheat was EUR2.00/tonne lower at EUR166.25/tonne, Aug corn was down EUR0.50/tonne at EUR164.50/tonne and Nov 16 rapeseed was up EUR3.00/tonne to EUR364.25/tonne.
The HGCA suggested that "untiring rains over the past few weeks is expected to have caused further concerns for German wheat."
The German wheat harvest is only around a third complete and "due to the delayed and interrupted harvest in some cases, there is a lot of uncertainty now surrounding yields for harvest 2016," they said.
The UK wheat harvest is still waiting to get going, early reports back from the field will make for interesting reading and debate.
Ukraine seems to be suffering no such problems, although production is estimated lower than last year due to adverse planting conditions last autumn. APK Inform see output in 2016 at 24.1 MMT, down 9% on last year.
The early grain harvest in Ukraine has raced to 92% complete at 34.3 MMT off 8.8 million ha. That includes 92% of the planned wheat harvest along with 97% of the anticipate barley area and 91% of the OSR crop.
The Ukraine Ministry say that this year's wheat crop is 55:45% in favour of milling wheat compared to only 40:60% last year.
The Russian wheat harvest meanwhile is 38.4% done off 10.6 million ha for a crop of 41.9 MMT thus far.
Winter and spring barley is 26.7% cut (2.2 million ha) for a crop of 7.1 MMT to date.
