EU Grains End Mostly Lower For The Day And Week

19/02/16 — EU grains closed mostly a little lower on the day and for the week.

At the finish, Mar 16 London wheat was down GBP0.35/tonne at GBP104.25/tonne, Mar 16 Paris wheat was EUR0.75/tonne lower at EUR152.00/tonne, Mar 16 corn was flat at EUR146.00/tonne and May 16 rapeseed fell EUR2.25/tonne to EUR353.75/tonne.

For the week that puts nearby London wheat GBP0.50/tonne lower, with Paris wheat down EUR3.00/tonne, corn EUR3.75/tonne lower and rapeseed falling EUR2.25/tonne.

Large world stocks, relaxed demand and stiff export competition remain the prevalent stories for wheat.

Brussels last night confirmed 733 TMT worth of EU soft wheat export licences for the past week. Not a bad week, but at just short of 17 MMT the season to date total still lags last year’s pace by 15%.

Barley exports of 254 TMT were also authorised, taking the 2015/16 total to 6.6 MMT. That’s up more than 13% on a year ago, but this percentage is now falling significantly from where things were earlier in the season.

Egypt’s GASC bought 240 TMT of wheat in a tender, with one 60 TMT cargo coming from France and the rest of Russian origin. All were for March 15-25 shipment.

The prices reportedly paid were $183/tonne plus $8.40/tonne freight for the French wheat and between $187.90/tonne and $188.65/tonne plus $6.50/tonne freight for the Russian material.

GASC also made a rare purchase of 30 TMT of US hard red spring wheat it was revealed in separate data.