EU Wheat Mostly Lower

EU wheat futures were mostly lower Wednesday with January Paris milling wheat futures falling EUR0.50, at EUR129.00/tonne, and London January feed wheat dropping GBP0.90 to GBP104.60/tonne.

The pound was firmer against the US dollar, which did little to help the cause of UK wheat. UK wheat exports to the end of October at 582,380 MT are only half of what they were a year ago.

More demand is needed, a bioethanol plant on every street corner might help.

Egypt were back in the market, buying 360,000 MT of wheat today, unfortunately only 60,000 MT of that was EU wheat (French). No surprises to hear who picked up the rest of the order - that's right Russia.

If we can gain some small crumb of comfort, the Russian wheat was all at USD192.75/tonne, less than a dollar below the price paid for French wheat.

It is also interesting to note that the new regulations recently introduced by the state-owned wheat buyer GASC already appear to be not throwing up the savings hoped for. Under the new conditions the minimum tender size must be 60,000 MT and the goods can only come from one single port.

Nidera offered French wheat at USD3.87/tonne cheaper from a two port load option, whilst Invivo were at a USD5.20/tonne discount for two ports.

Invivo were also more than USD2/tonne cheaper for a 30,000 MT French cargo than the price GASC paid Glencore for a 60,000 MT shipment.