Wheat prices recovered slightly after last week's decline

After last week's fall yesterday, global stock markets saw a speculative rise in wheat prices, caused by possible adjustments to harvests in Argentina, Australia and the Russian Federation.

USDA experts' increase in the forecast of world production increased the pressure on prices, but they are supported by uncertainty with further supplies of Black Sea wheat.

The market was supported by the purchase by the state operator of Saudi Arabia SAGO of 1 million tons of food wheat at the 6th tender this year. At the same time, SAGO purchased a batch of wheat produced by the EU, North and South America, Australia and the Black Sea region, twice as large as planned, for delivery from April to June 2023 at a price of $374.25-$390.6/t C&F.

According to Crop Progress, as of November 13, 96% of the acreage in the U.S. was planted with winter wheat (3% higher than the 5-year average), and 81% of the acreage had sprouted, which corresponds to the average.

Exports of wheat from the USA for the week of November 4-10 fell by 2.04 times to 76.4 thousand tons, and in general in the season reached 9.9 million tons compared to 10.32 million tons on this date last year.

Yesterday, wheat quotations on world exchanges slightly recovered:

• by 0.6% or $1.75/t to $300.7/t - December futures for soft winter SRW wheat in Chicago (-10.4% for the month),
• by 1.3% or $4.68/t to $351.4/t - December HRW hard winter wheat futures in Kansas City (-4.9%).
• by 1.8% or $6.34/t to $353.8/t - December futures for HRS durum wheat in Minneapolis (-3.3%).
• by 0.1% or $0.5/t to $318.5/t - December Black Sea wheat futures in Chicago (-3.3%).

However, December wheat futures on the Paris Euronext fell another 1% or €3.25/t to €324/t or $334.3/t amid the results of the latest tenders.

According to FranceAgriMer, as of November 7, 92% of the planned area was sown with winter wheat in France, while last year this figure was 86%.

On the eve of the completion of the grain corridor, Ukraine is speeding up shipments, and for November 1-14, it exported 742,000 tons of wheat (841,000 tons for the same period last year). The total export of the season amounted to 5.74 million tons of wheat compared to last year's 13.2 million tons.

At the same time, for November 1-10, the Russian Federation increased wheat exports by 2.8 times to 1.986 million tons compared to the same period last year, while Turkey increased its purchases of Russian wheat by 2.7 times to 503 thousand tons.

Ukrainian food wheat with a protein content of 11.5-12.5% for delivery in November - December is offered at $295-315/t FOB - deep-sea ports, while Russian - at $310-320/t FOB. However, buyers prefer Russian grain due to high risks and freight rates for Ukrainian ports.