Wheat quotes did not react to severe frosts in the US, while in Ukraine wheat prices are rising due to supply delays

A severe storm with frost and snowfall over the weekend covered much of the United States, so analysts expected a speculative increase in wheat quotes on Monday. But the brevity of the frost and a significant layer of snow that covered the crops before the frost made the risks of crop damage minimal, so the markets hardly reacted to the change in weather.

The pace of wheat exports from the USA for January 16-22 decreased by 12% compared to the previous week to 351 thousand tons, but total exports for the season reached 16.33 million tons, which is 18.2% higher than the corresponding figure last year and is 67% of the forecasted exports for the 2025/26 MY (24.5 million tons).

Wheat exports from the EU since the beginning of the 2025/26 MY amounted to 11.6 million tons, which is 1.7% lower than the corresponding figure last year and is only 36% of the forecasted exports for this season (32.5 million tons). Therefore, competition between European and Black Sea wheat will intensify in the second half of the season.

March wheat futures on US exchanges rose during the week:

• by 0.9% to $192/t - for SRW wheat in Chicago,
• by 0.5% to $194.7/t – for HRW wheat in Kansas City,
• by 1% to $209.7/t for HRS wheat in Minneapolis.

At the same time, wheat futures on Euronext in Paris fell by 1.2% to €189/t or $224.4/t.

In Ukraine, frosts of -10-22 degrees have been persisting for two weeks, but the presence of snow cover protects winter crops from damage, so there are no concerns about their condition yet.

However, cold weather continues to delay wheat shipments to ports, forcing traders to raise prices to boost supplies.

Export purchase prices for wheat in Ukraine increased by another 100 UAH/t during the week to 10,300–10,500 UAH/t or $212–215/t for food wheat and to 10,000–10,100 UAH/t or $205–206/t for feed wheat with delivery to Black Sea ports.

In January, as in December, there was an increase in export demand and wheat export rates. Thus, for 1-27 days of January, 420 thousand tons of wheat were exported (compared to 700 thousand tons last year), and in total in the 2025/26 MY, exports amounted to 8.37 million tons, which is 27% lower than last year's rates (10.61 million tons). The forecast for wheat exports from Ukraine has been reduced to 14 million tons (compared to 15.8 million tons last season) due to delayed shipments in the first half of the season and high prices for Ukrainian wheat.

The decline in the dollar exchange rate on the interbank market and increased supplies may stop the growth of export prices in Ukraine in the coming weeks, so farmers should increase wheat sales.