EU Grains Close - Monday

03/10/16 -- EU grains closed mixed but mostly higher. London wheat was supported by the pound dipping to new lows against the US dollar and euro.

The day ended with Nov 16 London up GBP0.70/tonne at GBP127.75/tonne, Dec 16 Paris wheat was down EUR0.50/tonne at EUR160.00/tonne, Nov 16 corn was down EUR0.25/tonne at EUR160.00/tonne and Nov 16 rapeseed was up EUR1.25/tonne to EUR377.00/tonne.

Sterling fell on fears of a so-called "hard Brexit" even though economic data continues to point to a better than expected performance by the UK economy since the June vote.

The outlook for continued pound depreciation looks like supporting London wheat going forward.

In other news, the EU Commission cut their forecast for this year's EU corn crop to now only match last year's poor total of 59.7 MMT, down from 62.5 MMT in August. Soft wheat output was increased from 133.3 MMT last month to 134.2 MMT, but still well down on 151.6 MMT a year ago. The EU barley crop was placed at 59.6 MMT (59.0 MMT a month ago and 60.7 MMT in 2015).

Total potential grain exports in 2016/17 were forecast at 37.6 MMT (including 25.0 MMT of wheat, 8.0 MMT of barley and 3.0 MMT of corn).

Russia said that it's 2016 grain harvest was 90.9% complete at 111.7 MMT in bunker weight. That includes 75.2 MMT of wheat (97.1% harvested), 18.8 MMT of barley (98.1%) and 3.5 MMT of corn (23.2%).

Planting works for the 2017 harvest are said to have been carried out on 11.7 million ha (67.4% of plan).

Kazakhstan's harvest is said to be 97.3% complete at 22.5 MMT.

In Ukraine Agritel said that a 26.5 MMT corn harvest and 2016/17 exports of 17.2 MMT "look credible". The USDA currently estimates these at 26.0 MMT and 17.0 MMT respectively.

APK Inform said that Ukraine's seaports had exported an impressive 1.02 MMT of grains last week, up from 650 TMT the previous week. Last week's total included 804 TMT of wheat, 65.7 TMT of corn and 153.8 TMT of barley.

Top export home for Ukraine grain was Saudi Arabia taking 128.4 TMT followed by Egypt (66 TMT).

Jordan tendered for 100,000 MT of hard milling wheat of optional origin.