Wheat prices remain under pressure from supplies from the Black Sea region

Hopes for a significant increase in grain supplies from Ukraine have not been realized yet, because after the Russian missile attacks on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, most enterprises, including ports, have power outages, which delays the loading of ships. In addition, Russian inspectors as part of the SCC slow down the inspection of vessels, so now Ukraine sends no more than 5 vessels per day, although in previous weeks their number reached 10. As a result, the queue for inspection in Istanbul increased from 76 to 112 vessels in a week, although everyone hoped that it would decrease.

Export demand prices for wheat in the ports of Ukraine increased by $5-10/t during the week to $195-210/t or UAH 8,000-8,300/t, but buyer activity is low due to uncertainty with shipments. In general, during the week, Ukraine exported 1 million tons of wheat, which corresponds to the average weekly indicator of October and November.

The Egyptian GASC purchased 175,000 tons of wheat at a price of $361/t CIF in private negotiations, including 35,000 Ukrainian tons for December delivery and 140,000 Russian tons for January delivery.

This week, Pakistan will hold a tender for the purchase of 500,000 tons of wheat, and Turkey will hold a tender for the purchase of 455,000 tons of food wheat, which will serve as indicators of demand prices.

Ahead of the weekend and amid low trader activity, wheat prices fell on Friday:

• by 2.4% or $6.6/t to $284.9/t - December futures for soft winter SRW wheat in Chicago (-3.6% for the week),
• by 0.9% or $3.03/t to $338.8/t - December futures for HRS durum wheat in Minneapolis (-3.2%).
• by 0.05% or $0.18/t to $351.7/t - December HRW hard winter wheat futures in Kansas City (+2.4%).

At the same time, prices increased:

• by $0.25/t to $317.25/t January Black Sea wheat futures in Chicago (-0.4%).
• by 1.7% or €5.5/t to €326.75/t or $338.5/t December wheat futures on Paris Euronext (-0.3%).

Quotations of durum wheat were supported by the purchase by the state agency of Algeria of 300-450 thousand tons of durum wheat at a price of $495/t C&F in Panamax vessels and at a price of $502-506/t C&F for Handysize cargoes.

In Australia, wheat has been harvested on 10% of the area, and quality and yield are exceeding expectations, which may soon lead to an adjustment in forecasts.