With the US markets closed today marking the Labor Day holiday it felt like a “non-day” would be on the cards. On a slow news day what do we discuss? Well, according to the Met Office the summer of 2012 has been the wettest for 100 years, as if we needed to be told that! On average the Uk received 366.8 mm rainfall during the summer months of June, July and August which compares with a more normal figure of 241 mm. In addition we are told that the summer was likely to be one of the most dull on record with 399 hours of sunshine, the worst sine 1980.
Clearly a slow news day! However, the wet and dull weather have conspired to produce a delayed harvest with resultant harvested wheat yielding poorly as previously mentioned. Specific weights are the poorest since 1977 according to the HGCA, and considering these figures are based on early (in relative terms) harvested grains in the south and contain a large proportion of milling quality wheat the final results are likely to deteriorate further.
Finally we saw this weekend become a major one for export tenders with close to one million tonnes of deals done. Egypt and Saudi Arabia were key buyers with a host of sellers featuring including Australia, EU and North and South America. The Black Sea region was not one of the key sellers on this occasion, having filled Egypt’s earlier 355,000 mt order.
Some view the overall Russian sales volumes to date as reflecting the exploitation of current availability, poor harvest prospects lead many to conclude that the exportable surplus will soon be committed, possibly as soon as the end of October, and that particular source of supply closing the doors. Should that become the case tenders will likely switch to EU and US origins with their higher freight costs.