The Morning Vibe
03/09/13 -- The market is taking the view that weekend Midwest rains were not as beneficial as they might have been. You can see a map of the last 3 days precipitation here: Another reason why you should be on Twitter.
Continuing with the recent theme, the trade seems to think that this is more of an issue for beans than corn, as we currently have the overnight Globex market around 35-40 cents higher on beans (and meal up USD18) versus 5-7 cents firmer on corn. Wheat, the corn follower, is up 2-4 cents.
The market will now be looking to see how much the US corn and soybean crops have deteriorated in condition last week. The USDA will report on that after the close of Chicago tonight, with the trade expecting a 2-4 percentage point decline in corn rated good/excellent and a 4-6 point drop for beans. They cut corn G/E by 2 points last week to 59%, with beans down 4 points to 58%.
The Russian grain harvest is now at 61.7 MMT off 55.9% of the combinable crop area, with yields at 2.39 MT/ha versus 1.89 MT/ha in 2012 and 2.60 MT/ha in 2011. Wheat accounts for 39.8 MMT of that off 56.8% of the planned area, with yields at 2.79 MT/ha, a 43% increase on 2012. They've also harvested 12.2 MMT of barley (65.6%), 295 TMT of corn (2.4%) and 734 TMT of sunflower (4.2%).
Morocco are tendering for 50 TMT of durum wheat and 9 TMT of corn of EU origin.
France are said to be about to send their first barley shipment to Jordan in over 5 years with a vessel currently waiting to load at Rouen before proceeding to Dunkirk to load the remainder of a 50 TMT cargo.
The Turkish Ag Ministry say that their wheat harvest this year will rise 7.3% to 22 MMT, cutting imports which have also been hit by the recent devaluation of the Turkish lira. They were Russia's second largest wheat export home in 2012/13 after Egypt.
I hear that Strategie Grains have increased their forecast for UK OSR production to 2.2 MMT, that's still down more than 15% on last year's result but 4-500 TMT more than private estimates that were being discussed back in March/April.
They've also increased their forecast for EU-28 OSR production to 20.8 MMT, up almost 7% on last year's 19.5 MMT. They have output in Germany up 18.8% at 5.7 MMT, with the Polish crop up 19% at 2.5 MMT and the Czech Republic's crop up 27% at 1.4 MMT.
Strategie Grains are said to have also increased their EU-28 sunflower crop estimate from 8.3 MMT to 8.4 MMT, up 20% on last year, including output of 1.8 MMT each in France and Romania, along with 1.6 MMT in Bulgaria and 1.4 MMT in Hungary.
Ukraine are starting to become (predictably) a victim of their own success, The Brazil of the northern hemisphere has a bumper harvest and record volumes of grain to export in 2013/14, yet their infrastructure has barely changed in years. As well as aiming at record grain exports they also have large volumes of by-products such as sunpellets to shift too this season, putting further pressure on the nation's antiquated logistics. Grain exports fell to 500 TMT last week, and that's before they try to cram looming record corn exports out of the door too.
New crop Ukraine corn offers are said to be around USD198-200/tonne FOB which is the equivalent of around GBP127.50-128.50/tonne.
Newly planted wheat in Argentina could do with some rain, but there's not a lot in the 7 day forecast. Old crop wheat stocks are extremely tight meanwhile.
British Sugar are reported to have announced their 2013/14 opening dates: Newark and Wissington September 17. Bury St Edmunds September 19 and Cantley will open on September 24.