EU Grains Mixed, French Wheat Crop Conditions Down Again
05/08/16 -- EU grains closed mixed on the day and for the week.
At the close Nov 16 London wheat was down GBP0.45/tonne at GBP127.00/tonne, Sep 16 Paris wheat was up EUR0.25/tonne to EUR166.50/tonne, Aug Paris corn was up EUR0.50/tonne at EUR165.00/tonne and Nov 16 Paris rapeseed was EUR2.00/tonne firmer at EUR366.25/tonne.
For the week as a whole, London wheat managed net gains of GBP1.30/tonne, Paris wheat added half a euro, corn lost EUR3.25/tonne and rapeseed was up EUR4.25/tonne.
French wheat crop conditions fell once again. This time FranceAgriMer dropped the proportion of the crop rated good to very good 5 percentage points to just 35% (77% a year ago). They now have 10% of the crop in the worst "very poor" category, along with a further 28% classed as "poor".
They said that the French wheat harvest had advanced to 62% complete (41% last week and 82% this time last year).
French corn ratings were up one point at 71% good to very good (versus 58% a year ago).
The French Ag Minister said that he expects French soft wheat production to be down 29% at 29.1 MMT this year.
The HGCA said that the UK winter barley harvest had reached 60% done, with yields averaging 5.9-6.3 MT/ha versus the recent norm of 6.8 MT/ha, a drop of 10% on last year using the mean decline.
The winter OSR harvest is 40% complete with yields averaging 3.1-3.3 MT/ha versus 3.6 MT/ha for the recent average, an 11% drop on the mean.
The winter wheat harvest has only just begun so it's too early to give an average yield estimate, but below average looks a safe bet.
Using the HGCA's planted area estimate of 1.794 million ha a 7.5 MT/ha yield would give us a crop of 13.455 MMT, an 8.0 MT/ha yield returns a 14.352 MMT crop. Production last year was 16.44 MMT.
On the export front, Brussels reported the approval of 352 TMT worth of soft wheat export licences this past week (down from 413 TMT a week ago), taking the season to date total to 2.58 MMT so far (versus 2.0 MMT a year ago).