EU Grains Mixed, France Buying In Wheat?
01/08/16 -- EU grains finished mixed, with rapeseed following sharply lower Chicago soybean into the red, but London wheat getting support from a weaker sterling.
The day ended with Nov 16 London up GBP1.00/tonne at GBP126.50/tonne, Sep 16 Paris wheat was EUR1.00/tonne higher at EUR167.00/tonne, Aug corn was down unchanged at EUR168.75/tonne and Nov 16 rapeseed was down EUR3.75/tonne to EUR358.25/tonne.
The pound is under a bit of pressure on the belief that the Bank of England will cut UK base rates to a 300-year low 0.25% on Thursday.
Concerns over French crops abound, Strategie Grains today cut their view on the French OSR crop by 410,000 MT to 4.7 MMT, a 12% decline on a year ago.
The also reduced Germany (down 160,000 MT to 5.0 MMT) and Poland (down 230,000 MT to 2.2 MMT). The overall view on the EU-28 was down 570,000 MT on last month to 20.7 MMT, a 5.5% fall compared with last year.
ODA forecast the French soft wheat crop at 28.2 MMT, Reuters confirmed reports of France buying Romanian milling wheat for August shipment to Dunkirk. There are also rumours of a French co-op booking Russian 12.5% milling wheat into Rouen.
Elsewhere though the harvest continues as normal. Russia is 27.6% done on 13 million ha with 49 MMT in the bin so far. That includes 37.9 MMT of wheat and 5.7 MMT of barley.
Russian exports for Jul 1-27 stand at 1.72 MMT, a 7.4% rise on a year ago. Of that total 1.25 MMT is wheat.
Ukraine's early grain harvest is 84% complete on 8.1 million ha for a crop of 31 MMT to date. That includes 21.5 MMT of wheat and 8.5 MMT of barley. They've also harvested 1.1 MMT of OSR off 88% of plan.
National Australia Bank forecast the 2016 wheat crop there at 27.2 MMT versus 26.1 MMT previously - the 3rd largest on record.
