EU Grains Mostly Lower
The day ended with Jan 17 London wheat down GBP1.40/tonne at GBP147.00/tonne, Mar 17 Paris wheat was down EUR0.25/tonne at EUR169.50/tonne, Mar 17 Paris corn was unchanged at EUR169.50/tonne and Feb 17 Paris rapeseed rose EUR2.50/tonne to EUR420.75/tonne.
The latest customs data from Brussels shows EU soft wheat exports running 3% lower than year ago levels at 13.6 MMT. A continuation of this slowdown is expected in the second half of the season, with total final all wheat exports likely to be in the region of 25.5 MMT versus 35.7 MMT a year ago, for a drop of 28.6% say the USDA.
French analysts Strategie Grains forecast next season's EU 2017/18 soft wheat exports at 26.5 MMT in it's first forecast of the year, flagging a dent in production hopes after this month's cold snap, note Agrimoney. (The EU Commission have this season's soft wheat only exports at 23 MMT versus an average of 32.0 MMT/year in the three seasons to 2015/16).
"Strategie Grains also factored in an EU soft wheat harvest of 143.8 MMT this year, a downgrade of 1.2 MMT on the previous estimate. The downgraded figure still represents a sharp recovery, of 7.9 MMT, on the 2016 result," Agrimoney however note.
On the international tender front, Jordan bought 50,000 MT of hard wheat in a tender for 100,000 MT, and are tendering for 50,0000 MT of feed barley. Taiwan are in the market for 93,600 MT of what will probably turn out to be US milling wheat, Morocco are reported to have bought 363,636 MT of EU soft wheat in a tender.
Egypt's GASC are back in the market today tendering for wheat for Feb 22 - Mar 3 shipment, having bought a mixture of Russian and Romanian wheat recently. Results of that are expected Friday afternoon.
A Ukraine think tank (UNIAN) estimated 2016/17 grain exports at a record 43.7 MMT this season, including 20.9 MMT of corn 16.5 MMT of wheat and 5.3 MMT of barley. Last season's grain export record was 39.4 MMT.
