Ukraine grain harvested nearly 8MMT, Ministry to revise output estimate next week
As of July 15, Ukraine had harvested nearly 8 mln tonnes of spring grains and grain legumes from the area of 2.6 mln ha, 20% from the plan, reported Yuriy Melnik, Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine on July, 15.
3.92 mln tonnes of wheat were harvested from the area of 1.23 mln ha, 18% from the planned acreage.
3.9 mln tonnes of barley were harvested from the area 1.26 mln ha, or 29% of the planned acreage.
6.300 tonnes of rye harvested from the area 2.900 ha, 1% of the planned area.
The Ministry said it plans to review its own forecast for 2008 yield due to high crop capacity. The new forecast will be presented in a week. As a reminder, earlier Ministry of Agrarian Policy forecasted yield at the level of 40.4 mln tonnes of grain against 29.3 mln tonnes last year.
Overnight developments in the grains
Grains are mixed overnight with eCBOT soybeans 10-12 cents firmer on ideas that last night's steep losses were overdone. Corn showed little change.
Soybeans have declined 5 percent in the past two days on speculation that favourable weather in parts of the U.S. Midwest will boost crop prospects. Corn lost 6 percent in the two-day period. Dry weather helped revive crops ravaged last month by floods along the Mississippi and Iowa rivers, and timely rains fell in some growing areas.
There is evidence of some investors trying to get out of commodities to make up for losses from stocks or for cash , one analyst said.
Wheat is 4-5c lower this morning after wheat regions in Western Australia state, the nation's biggest grower of the grain, have received their "best rain'' of the cropping season, CBH Group said today.
There was between 10 millimeters (0.4 inch) and 40 millimeters of rain overnight, Michael Musgrave, operations manager for CBH, the state's largest grain handler and marketer, said. Rain fell across the majority of the wheat belt, he said.
US Midwest Weather - Near Perfect, But Maturity Lags
(Freese Notis) -- Crop condition ratings released this week showed that the Nation's corn and soybean crops continue to grind their way back towards respectability. Corn ratings at 49 percent good/15 percent excellent compares to ratings at just 48 percent good/9 percent excellent just four weeks ago and is not far below last year's crop which was 46 percent good/18 percent excellent at this same time. Historically this is a time frame when corn ratings have generally held steady or even dipped a bit, which makes the improvement seen over the past month that much more impressive. Soybean ratings did not improve all that much this week with the rating of 48 percent good/11 percent excellent, but has shown some improvement since the middle of June (when it was 49 percent good and 7 percent excellent) and is also not far below the ratings of last year (49 percent good and 13 percent excellent at this same time).
Chances are good that we will see at least steady, if not improved, ratings for next week's report. Coming into this week, clearly the area of the Corn Belt that needed the rain the most was the northwestern part of the region, and that same area is in a near-perfect set-up for a widespread soaking for the middle and latter parts of this week. I still expect that this activity will get kicked off tonight, and very well could last through a good part of the coming weekend. South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and northwestern Iowa look to be target areas for rains that will eventually total at least one to two inches and locally much, much heavier. It is going to be a while before any of that rain works into southeastern parts of the Midwest, but excellent rains in a lot of that area last weekend means that crops should improve there this week despite the lack of rain.
Rather than crop ratings, maybe the biggest fear right now should be how slow the crops are maturing. Corn crops in most of the Midwest have barely begun to tassel, while normally we are well over one-third of the way through that stage and we were around halfway through that stage last year at this time. Agronomists have determined that it takes about 60 days for corn to reach maturity after the time its starts to silk. We have just 13 percent of the Nation's corn crop silking this week, so we will have 87 percent of the crop maturing this year sometime after September 11 (versus the 5-year average of 64 percent and 50 percent with last year's crop).
Lehman Bros - Who Wants Them?
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- After a drastic slide in Lehman Brothers shares, speculation about clients leaving and a reported search for new strategic options, now would be a good time to acquire the struggling brokerage firm, analysts say. But bidders may be thin on the ground.
"I'm hard pressed to give you many viable buyers of Lehman," said Jeff Harte, a securities industry analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners. "Most large banks are focused on their own capital issues."
Even if a bidder did come forward, it would have to win over a lot of Lehman employees -- who control around 30% of the stock -- or risk losing them once the deal was complete, Harte said.
"The employees are not particularly willing to sell, especially at such bargain-basement prices," agreed Stefan-Michael Stalmann, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt.
Shares in Lehman have tumbled more than 80% this year, including sharp falls in recent sessions on speculation that some clients are starting to cut back their business. Those rumors have been denied by the firm and some of its major trading customers.
Lehman is now mulling a handful of options, including a strategic alliance with a partner that it hopes will restore investor confidence, an asset sale, or a possible share buyback, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Still, Lehman shares slumped 14% to close at $12.40 on Monday, their lowest level in roughly a decade.
Comparisons have been made to Bear Stearns, which was forced to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase in March after clients abandoned the brokerage firm.
EU Maize Imports At 13.4 Mln T July 2007-May 2008
(ANSA) -- The 27 European Union (EU) member countries imported a total 13.4 million tonnes of maize for the period July 2007 to May 2008, the latest official statistics of the EU, elaborated by the research office of Italian trade fair centre CremonaFiere, showed.
The member countries imported a total 5.1 million tonnes of maize for the period July 2006 to May 2007 and a total 2.4 million tonnes of maize for July 2005 to May 2006. The imports rose by 464 pct for the three-year period, the report also showed.
The sorghum imports of the EU countries stood at 49,000 tonnes in the period July 2005 to May 2006 and reached 5.3 million tonnes in the period July 2007 to May 2008.
According to CremonaFiere's research office regarding the marketing and sale campaign for the period July 2008 to May 2009, which started on July 1, 2008, the situation in the European grain markets will improve due to the expected increase in the domestic output determined by the growth of the planted areas. The grain planted areas in Europe increased to 59.9 million ha from 56.6 million ha, CremonaFiere's research office added. No further details were available.
EU Suspends Review of AB Foods' Buy of GBI Assets
The European Commission on Tuesday suspended its review of Associated British Foods' plan to buy some assets and subsidiaries of GB Ingredients BV of the Netherlands.
The suspension means the Commission, the EU's top competition regulator, has sought missing information. The suspension will end when the parties provide needed materials.
GB Ingredients is a producer of yeast.
Russia Permits Low Level Presence of GMOs in Animal Feed
Russia has said that all animal feed can now contain a low level GMO presence of up to 0.9% and still be considered biotech free.
The country’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (VPSS) has declared feed is biotech-free if 0.5 percent or less of each component contains non-registered biotech products and if 0.9 percent or less of each component contains registered biotech products.
Both ‘registered’ and ‘non-registered’ refer to the status of GMOs in Russia.
Russian authorities have made the decision after conceding low level presence of biotech substances is unavoidable. The move is sure to increase the pressure on the European Commission which has been charged with finding a ‘technical solution’ to the region’s zero tolerance approach to the presence of unapproved GMOs in feed.
The hope is that by clarifying the levels at which feed may be declared ‘GMO-free’, VPSS will harmonise interpretations at customs.
One US expert said: “Such clarification is necessary, since VPSS has many laboratories that are capable of determining slight traces of biotech components. Given that most feeds on the world market have or may have biotech components, VPSS’s new definition may encourage feed importers to register more feed as biotech.”
Premier Foods plc - Trading Update
Trading update for the half year ended 28 June 2008. Highlights:
* Group sales up 7%
* Price rises achieved to recover cost inflation
* Group Trading profit(2) in line with first half of 2007
* Hovis rejuvenation underway
* RHM and Campbell's integration accelerated
* Synergy delivery accelerated
* On course to deliver our profit expectations for the full year
Robert Schofield, Chief Executive, said:
"I am pleased to report that Premier Foods made good strategic and operational progress during the first half of the year, despite the difficult economic and trading environment that all consumer businesses are facing. Against this background we have recovered the commodity cost inflation we have seen to date and we expect pro forma Trading profit for the first half of the year to be in line with the same period last year.
"The integration of Campbell's and RHM is proceeding ahead of its original schedule. Our manufacturing rationalisation programme is progressing well with the closure of the Bristol and Droylsden factories in June. We have now closed five out of the nine factories scheduled to close through this programme with the remaining four to close over the second half of the year.
"Premier's broad portfolio of staple food products and leading brands, supplied through a wide range of customers, provides us with a resilient base as consumers' buying patterns evolve. We have good forward sight of inflationary pressures and have plans in place to mitigate them as they occur. Our expectations for the year remain unchanged with progress weighted to the second half as the benefits of synergies from the manufacturing rationalisation programme, price increases achieved to date and the rejuvenation of Hovis flow through."
Premier's trading performance in the first half of 2008 was in line with our expectations with Group sales up by approximately 7% on the same period last year. The driver of the sales growth has been price rises to recover the significant input cost inflation, which began during the second half of 2007. Trading profit continues to be in line with our expectations with, as previously indicated, the synergies from the integration of Campbell's and RHM being broadly offset by the delay in recovering cost inflation and lower bread volumes compared to the same period in 2007.
Sales for the Baking & Milling division are approximately 16% ahead year on year for the first half, driven by pricing activity. We achieved price increases across our bread and flour ranges in the first half, reflecting continued pressure from wheat and other input costs. We have seen sales volumes of Hovis stabilise during the first half of the year albeit at lower levels than the same period in 2007. We are pleased by the response of consumers and customers to the new recipe and packaging for the Hovis white loaf and look forward to rejuvenating the whole of the Hovis range over the second half.
Following a review of our flour milling operations we entered into consultation with employees regarding the proposed closure of our Rotherham mill, which, if agreed, will be scheduled to close by the end of 2008.
