Wheat prices fell by 2% against the background of the loading of the first ships in the Black Sea ports of Ukraine

After the withdrawal of the Russian Federation from the grain agreement, the first two vessels last week entered the port of Chornomorsk for loading through the temporary corridor for civilian vessels established by the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The first of them has already left in the direction of the Bosphorus, which led to a speculative decrease in wheat exchange prices. The second is currently being loaded with wheat, which will be further transported to Egypt.

Yesterday, December futures fell:

• by 2.2% to $217.2/t - for soft winter SRW wheat in Chicago,
• by 1.6% to $270.1/t - for hard winter HRW wheat in Kansas City,
• by 1.5% to $285.7/t - for hard spring HRS-wheat in Minneapolis,
• by 2% to €238.5/t or $254.7/t - for wheat on the Paris Euronext.

Prices for European wheat were not supported even by the news about China's purchase of 550,000 tons of French wheat with a protein content of 11.5% and delivery in December-January. There is information that the People's Republic of China will purchase 5-10 consignments of French wheat of 60,000 tons with delivery in November - March. According to the data of the Chinese customs, wheat imports in August amounted to 840 thousand tons, which is 58% higher than in August 2022. In general, in January-August, the country imported 9.56 million tons of wheat, which is 53% ahead of last year's pace.

Favorable weather made it possible to accelerate the sowing of winter wheat in the USA. As of September 17, 15% of the area has been sown (16% on average over 5 years), while spring wheat has been harvested on 93% of the area.

According to the US MSG, for September 8-14, wheat exports from the country decreased by 10% compared to the previous week to 367,000 tons, and totaled 5.12 million tons in the season, which is 42% less than on this date last year.

Analysts at the Rosario Grain Exchange raised their forecast for Argentina's 2023/24 wheat crop from 15 million tonnes to 16.5 million tonnes after rains in key growing regions pushed the number of wheat crops in good or excellent condition up 5.7 for the week % to 24%.