Fundamentals in world wheat are unchanged.
Tigth supplies.
Importers countries that remain under covered.
However, all markets has been heavily down after the last Friday’s broad selloff, as Omicron came out.
Operators are tring to understand what effect it will have on demand and the movement of goods.
Meantime, in yesterday’s USDA weekly Crop Progress report, the condition of the winter wheat crop was rated 44% g/ex, unchanged from l.w. but above the expectations, even if down compared to 46% a year ago.
Next USDA weekly report will out only Monday, April 4, 2022 .
From Canada, ahead of the next StatCan report out Friday morning, analysts expect to see 2021 Canadian all-wheat production estimates at just under 21,2 MMT.
That would be a year-over-year decrease of 40%, if realized.
From Argentina, harvest weather remains generally favourable and BAGE raised their #crop estimate by 500k mt to 20.3 million mt.
In Europe, Matif rose to record highs last week, as Australian rains, the ongoing rapid speed of EU exports, and a 17-month low in the Euro.
However, the risks linked to Omicron and the record Australian harvests sent Euronext clearly in the red.
In add, Europe is already introducing new restrictive measures in an attempt to contain a new wave of contamination.
From the Black Sea basin, the volume and validity period of Russian export quotas could now be announced in Dec..
It is unclear what exactly this means, but there is a risk that the quota will be smaller than previously expected and put into effect earlier.
The Russian export tax will exceed $80/mt next week.
That could put some additional pressure on Russian farmers to sell their wheat, according to some analysts.
However, in October Russian farmers sold only 4.4 mmt of wheat.
That is -32% YOY and the lowest number in six years.
Meantime, Russian domestic wheat and flour prices remain at near record highs.
ABARES in Australia did say today they expect the wheat to reach an amazing 34.4 million mt, which would be a new record over the one made last year.
However harvest results continue to show lower than expected protein levels.
This will be important as high-protein wheat is short and Australia was supposed to re-supply the increasingly tight milling wheat situation.
As for durmwheat, global durum prices were mixed last week.
After trending sideways for 3 weeks, price in Italy fell 5 Euros/mt to 538 Euros/mt.
Bids in the St. Lawrence rose 8€/mt to 609 €/mt (~C$875/mt), while prices in Spain were unchanged at 540 Euros/mt.
To note Morocco that has resumed buying durum wheat.
The country, has imported 202k mt of Canadian durum year-to-date this marketing year, up 24% from last YTD.
