European market

Saudi Arabia launched a 720 000 tonnes’ feed barley tender yesterday. This return of SAGO on the market is a relief for operators that were impatiently waiting to see again this major importing country. The absence of Saudi Arabia pushed prices to tumble from the start of the year. Shipments planned for the May-June period should cover the needs of the country until the end of the marketing year.

The weakness of the euro has allowed the European cereals market to recoup losses from the day before. On Euronext, from the start of the week, wheat prices of the May 2019’s delivery are consolidating above 188 €/t. The port activity remains supported by large shipments mainly to Egypt and Algeria.

The recent recovery of the palm in Kula Lumpur is now running out of steam. A technical resistance level is currently blocking the rebound process of previous sessions. This is weighing on other veg oils’ markets.

American market

The US market is currently focused on the climatic conditions in place in the Midwest. Indeed, floods in the region are raising farmers’ worries.

This is probably too early to express concerns on corn plantings, as they should not start before mid-April, but those of spring wheat are due to begin soon, especially in the North Dakota.

In this context, funds, which are very short of corn, are cautiously reducing their selling positions.

Yesterday, these actors were net buyers in 3 000 lots of wheat, 15 000 lots of corn and 3 500 lots of soybean.

US soybean export sales have been disappointing this week with only 335 200 t. They were in line with expectations for the corn and wheat with respectively 915 900 t and 660 000 t.

Black Sea market

According the Ukrainian data service, the inventories of agricultural products were amounted to 20.83 Mt on the 1st of March, representing an increase of 1.8 Mt from last year. This is broken down as follow: wheat at 5.4 Mt, corn at 13.64 Mt, barley at 1.16 Mt and sunflower at 4.9 Mt.

In Russia, the Vice Agricultural Minister said during the meeting of the Agrarian Committee of the country that the main way to increase the cereal and oilseed output will be to develop unused arable lands. This could be done by the liming of acid soils.

Rosselkhoznadzor has released an information about a first wheat sample of 21 tonnes shipped to Algeria to assess the conformity to country’s requirements.