EU grains closed mixed, but mostly a little easier - doing their best to resist pressure from falling outside markets.
Nov 14 London wheat finished up GBP0.25/tonne at GBP117.00/tonne, Nov 14 Paris wheat was up EUR1.50/tonne at EUR159.50/tonne, Nov 14 Paris corn was dowwas unchanged at EUR322.75/tonne.
The FTSE 100 fell hard for a second day, on concerns over a slowdown of the global economy and the impact of the ebola crisis. The leading UK index had its largest one day fall in 16 months yesterday.
NYMEX crude oil fell below $80/barrel for the fist time since June 2012, and Brent was also down heavily. NYMEX has fallen 7% so far this week, and Brent is down 8% compared to last Friday.
Defra confirmed UK wheat yields up 17% on last year at an average 8.6 MT/ha, with winter barley up 13% at 7.2 MT/ha, spring barley up 6% at 6.0 MT/ha and OSR yields 25% higher than a year ago at 3.7 MT/ha.
UK wheat plantings were up 20%, taking production to 16.6 MMT, a 39% jump versus 2013. With winter barley plantings up 38%, production is 56% higher than a year ago at 3.1 MMT. Spring barley sowings fell 28%, taking production 23% lower to 3.9 MMT. Despite an 8% decline in OSR plantings, the much better yields achieved this year see production up 17% at 2.5 MMT.
Customs data shows that the UK imported more wheat than it exported again in August, stretching that run to 27 months in a row. Imports came in at 228.7 TMT, a 17% rise versus July, with France (78 TMT), Denmark (66 TMT) and Germany (30 TMT) the leading suppliers.
The UK exported just under 130 TMT of wheat in August, with Spain the top destination taking 55.4 TMT.
It looks like Spain is stepping up its imports, after a disappointing 2014 grain crop of its own. July/Aug wheat imports were up 47% versus the first two months of the 2013/14 marketing year at 1.27 MMT. Corn imports were also up sharply, 37% higher at 740 TMT.
Spain's soft wheat crop fell 16.4% to 5.6 MMT this year, with corn production down 3.4% at 4.58 MMT.
Russia's 2014 harvest is winding down at 92.6% done, producing a grain crop of 104.4 MMT to date. That total includes 60.5 MMT of wheat, 20.9 MMT of barley and 7.7 MMT of corn.
It would seem that winter planting for the 2015 harvest is also wrapping up, at 96% done on 15.8 million hectares. That's up sharply from the only 11.4 million ha that had been planted this time a year ago. Timely rains are in the forecast to get the crop off to a good start.
Ukraine's winter wheat crop is also in for a good soaking in the coming days, that's been sown on 5.7 million ha to date, which is 93% of the anticipated 6.2 million ha. Plantings for the 2014 harvest were 6.1 million ha.
The Ukraine Stats Office said that the country had harvested 24.55 MMT of wheat and 9.3 MMT of barley this year.
