The Lunchtime Byte

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 14:01 | Categorized as

14/08/12 -- News that Ensus are to re-open their Wilton bioethanol plant after a 15-month shutdown is the big story of the day. It's on Reuters AND in the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, so it must be true even though Agrimoney.com reported as recently as Friday that an Ensus spokesman had said that they "have not made a formal decision over when they can restart."

Does that mean then that the decision was made spontaneously over a few rounds of sandwiches in the last couple of days? That bastion of the British press that is the 'Boro Gazette says that Ensus will be "on line by the end of the month" and fully operational inside two.

North East wheat growers will be dancing a little jig of joy at the news that's for sure. Is there a Lamborghini dealership in Middlesbrough I wonder? If there isn't it could be a marketing opportunity of you're quick.

That could certainly make for an interesting market when Vivergo fires up too and with the Black Sea countries looking likely out of the export market in the new year.

Other news is pretty thin on the ground. Japan is tendering for 70,865 MT of US wheat and Algeria is in for 50,000 MT of optional origin wheat having bought 400,000 MT of US durum wheat yesterday.

Egypt are back tendering for wheat today having bought two cargoes of Russian wheat at just under USD316.50/tonne excluding freight over the weekend. Unconfirmed reports just breaking suggest that they may have bought one cargo each of Russian and Ukraine wheat at around USD313-314/tonne.

A Moroccan tender, its first of 2012/13, for 300,000 MT of US soft wheat attracted no bids. Grain production there is said to be down 39% this year.

India continues to let some of its surplus wheat stocks trickle out into the market at these levels.

Malaysian palm oil futures fell to a 10-month low yesterday.

The Ukraine Ministry say that farmers there will plant 8.2 million hectares of winter grains for the 2013 harvest, down 2.6% on last year. Recent heavy rains should be beneficial in aiding crops to get established, something that didn't happen last year.

The July NOPA US soybean crush came in at 137.38 million bushels, up 3.224 million on June and well above the 131 million expected.