EU Grains Mostly HIgher On Strong Exports

13/07/16 -- EU grains closed mostly higher, although Jul 16 London wheat was unchanged at GBP111.75/tonne. Sep 16 Paris wheat traded up EUR0.75/tonne at EUR161.75/tonne, Aug corn was EUR2.25/tonne firmer at EUR173.50/tonne and Aug 16 Paris rapeseed was EUR6.75/tonne higher at EUR361.50/tonne.

UK customs data shows that we shipped out 348 TMT of wheat in May, along with a further 172 TMT worth of barley. Cumulative season to date totals are now 2.57 MMT for wheat and 1.89 MMT for barley.

Those figures are just shy of Defra's estimates for the full Jul/Jun season at 2.75 MMT and 1.90 MMT respectively.

"The UK’s strong May export performance was likely assisted by the growing discount for UK feed wheat versus maize in the month. This discount continued to grow in June, lending further support to UK export competitiveness," said the HGCA.

The size of this discount will obviously alter according to currency fluctuations, and once new crop corn becomes available a few months from now.

French exports also remain strong, with the leading grain hub of Rouen exporting a record 8.83 MMT of grains in 2015/16. That total included 6.43 MMT of wheat and 2.37 MMT of barley.

Top home was Algeria (3.5 MMT) followed by (2.1 MMT) then Egypt and China (1.2 MMT each).

The 2015 Russian grain harvest has now reached the 14.9 MT mark, of which 10.8 MMT is wheat and 2.3 MMT barley.

The Ukraine harvest now stands at 7.9 MMT, and the Kazakh harvest at 0.3 MMT.