EU wheat exports down 1.47% on year but catching up

EU wheat exports totaled 16.1 million mt between July 1 and Sunday, 1.47% down year on year, data from the EU Crops Market Observatory showed.

Although the total volume is still behind the previous marketing year’s, the pace has accelerated due to higher Russian wheat prices and tender purchases by a range of countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Four weeks ago, the pace of EU exports was down 7.32% year on year, but countries such as Algeria are understood to have been heavy buyers of French wheat.

Algeria booked 540,000 mt of wheat Thursday, another 120,000 mt on April 3 and 600,000 mt on February 15, sources say, adding that either French or US-origin wheat was booked.

Algeria has booked 4.4 million mt of EU wheat so far this marketing year, up 27.6% year on year.

The EU is forecasting a total of 19 million mt of wheat exports by the end of the marketing year.

In the 2019-2020 marketing year, the EU forecasts its wheat exports will total 25.5 million mt due to a larger planting area.

Platts