15 January 2015

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  • France has sold another 240,000mt of wheat to Egypt in its latest tender for late Feb ’15 shipment. Interestingly the range of offers was from France, Romania ($10 too dear) and Argentina (also $10 too dear) with Russia and US notably absent fro the offer lineup. Prices were aggressive, as we expected, some $8 lower that the last tender on 8 Jan. Bear in mind that despite the earlier concern (which included ourselves) over French quality – not an EU issue – we are still looking at a 7 million mt (70%) stock increase even with 30 million mt of exports. With 16 million mt of exports to date (see below) it will be interesting to see where demand comes from for the required 14 million mt to make the season total. There is a potential for an EU/Black sea bloodbath in due course – watch this space!
  • Mar ’15 soybeans broke through support at $9.91 but (interestingly) failed to close lower – just! It only feels as if it is a matter of time before we do so and pave the way for lower levels. Fund selling in soybeans and wheat is evident whilst buying in corn has been noted.
  • The USDA has today released its weekly export figures as detailed below, interestingly, corn and soybean volumes were above expectations:

Wheat: 377,100 mt, which is within estimates of 250,000-450,000 mt.
Corn: 843,900 mt, which is above estimates of 550,000-750,000 mt.
Soybeans: 1,438,200 mt, which is above estimates of 700,000-900,000 mt.
Soybean Meal: 72,200 mt, which is within estimates of 25,000-150,000 mt.
Soybean Oil: 29,300 mt which is within estimates of 10,000-30,000 mt.

  • EU wheat export pace picked up following the holiday season with Brussels granting weekly wheat export licences for 575,862 mt. This brings the season total to 16.239 million mt which is 425,045 mt (2.5%) behind last season’s record level.
  • Informa Economics released their latest report which includes 2015 US planting estimates, corn is forecast at 88.6 million acres, previously 88.01 million acres; soybeans are forecast at 88.03 million acres, previously 88.78 million acres; winter wheat 40.452 million acres, previously 42.278 million acres. Production estimates were also forecast for 2015, corn at 13.5 billion bu with yield at 169.5 bu/acre; soybeans 3.9 billion bu with yield at 44.9 bu/acre; all wheat production at 2.2 billion bu with yield at 45.7 bu/acre.