EU Grains Rise On Strong Exports/French Crop Downgrades

21/07/16 -- EU grains closed mostly firmer on strong exports and continued French crop downgrades.

The day ended with benchmark Nov 16 GBP2.35/tonne firmer at GBP125.80/tonne. Sep 16 Paris wheat traded up EUR6.50/tonne at EUR167.00/tonne, Aug corn was EUR1.75/tonne firmer at EUR169.25/tonne and Aug 16 Paris rapeseed was down EUR0.50/tonne at EUR364.00/tonne.

Brussels confirmed that they'd released 826 TMT worth of soft wheat export licences this past week along with 191 TMT worth for barley.

That takes the cumulative total on wheat to 1.814 MMT just 3 weeks into the new season, some 44% more than this time a year ago.

Barley exports for the season so far are now 619 TMT, some 47% below this time last year.

France's share of total wheat exports to date is 23.5% and for barley 30.4%.

Tunisia were confirmed to have bought 117,000 MT of soft wheat, 75,000 MT of barley and 109,000 MT of durum wheat in their tender, all of optional origin.

Reports out of France, where Agritel yesterday described the crop as "very, very bad" continue to suggest poor yields and bushel weights. It is also probably likely that protein levels will have been compromised.

FranceAgriMer will update us Friday morning on crop progress, although the figures given will only be as of Monday. Last week's good to very good ratings fell 10 percentage points in wheat.

Agritel also tell us that they estimate that only 40% of this year's Ukraine wheat crop will make milling standards as opposed to 50% on average for the last 3 seasons.

In Russia the 2016 wheat harvest is said to be 26.7 MMT already, with yields averaging 4.22 MT/ha vs. 3.78 MT/ha a year ago.