EU grains trade mostly higher to start the week, although the gains being seen are relatively modest.
At noon, Nov 15 London wheat was up 5 pence at GBP120.00/tonne, Sep 15 Paris wheat was a euro higher at EUR180.75tonne, Nov 15 Paris corn was up EUR2.25/tonne to EUR185.75/tonne, whilst Nov 15 Paris rapeseed was EUR1.75/tonne firmer at EUR385.75/tonne.
Fresh news is thin on the ground today, we will probably have to wait for Wednesday's August WASDE report from the USDA for the real excitement.
The market is generally expecting that to show reduced US corn and soybean yield potential this year, along with a downwards revision to their original planting estimates due to early season wetness. That equates to lower production numbers, and tighter US ending stocks than the numbers given last month.
Personally, I don't expect the data to be as supportive for prices as the market seems to currently think. Only time will tell...
In other (limited) news, Saudi Arabia have announced that they bought 505,000 MT of 12.5% hard wheat over the weekend, in a tender for 495,000 MT.
The origin(s) purchased have not been confirmed, but the prices reportedly paid were between $220.50 and $227.84 on a cost and freight basis. Delivery is set to be between September and November.
In the leading French port of Rouen, silo operator Socomac are reported to have announced that they are suspending the intake of wheat due to lack of space and slack exports. There are only two approved delivery points against the French wheat futures contract in the port, and this is one of them. The other is run by Senalia, and they made a similar announcement earlier last week.
That's a problem if you were intending to make delivery against a Sep 15 futures sale, following what is now expected to have been a record French soft wheat harvest this year.
The southern half of the country got rain over the weekend, which may alleviate the deteriorating French corn crop conditions a little.
Spanish analysts AgroInfoMarket said that the country produced 5.25 MMT of soft wheat this year, up from a previous estimate of 5.07 MMT, but down 6% on 5.59 MMT a year ago.
They were unchanged from previously on their forecast for Spanish soft wheat imports at 3.88 MMT, a near 8% reduction compared to 2014/15 despite the lower output.
Spanish barley production was forecast at 6.77 MMT, little changed from either a month or a year ago. Imports were raised from 650 TMT to 680 TMT, up almost 50% on last season.
They cut their view on this year's Spanish corn crop from 4.22 MMT to 4.11 MMT, now down 8% on last year, with imports seen unchanged at 6.25 MMT, a near 7% increase versus 2014/15.
APK Inform said that grain exports from both Russian and Ukraine seaports fell last week.
For the first week of the month Russia's seaports exported 315.9 TMT of grains, down from 328.5 TMT the previous week. That included 236.6 TMT of wheat, 42.1 TMT of barley and 7.2 TMT of corn.
Ukraine's exports via seaports meanwhile dropped from 707.6 TMT in the last week of July to 522.7 TMT in the first week of August. That consisted of 380.7 TMT of wheat and 142 TMT of barley. Corn exports last week were interestingly zero.
Separately, the Russian Ag Ministry said that the country's grain exports so far this season (Jul 1 - Aug 5) were down 40% on a year ago at 2.29 MMT. That included 1.44 MMT of wheat, 687 TMT of barley and 153 TMT of corn.
