Wheat and corn prices in Chicago went up on Wednesday while soybean price dropped. The change was not too big. Rapeseed price in Paris kept falling as wheat and corn prices increased.

The EUR/USD currency pair went up to 1.0570. Light oil went down to 53.56 USD/barrel.

Citigroup Investment Bank remains in a bull position on crude oil and copper in 2017. According to experts, European benchmark Brent oil will rise in price up to 70 dollars per barrel while copper price will increase to 7,000 dollars per ton at the end of this year.

Wheat price in Chicago went up yesterday following weeks of high demand. Soybean price, however, is under South American pressure again. Soybean harvesting in Brazil is much above last year’s pace. 3.8 mln tons of soybean have been exported from Brazil since the beginning of February and 3.0 mln tons more have been reserved for export. 2.9 mln tons of soybean were exported from the country throughout February 2016. The strong soybean export season in Brazil has started earlier than usual this year and is due to enormous demand worldwide. It is obvious that Brazilian farmers are not quick to sell their produce – 38% of their 2017 yield so far. This is partly due to the strong Brazilian currency, which has gone up in price by 21% versus the same period of last year. There is enough soybean at Brazilian ports to meet export demand.

American president Trump has sent a letter to the Renewable Fuels Association. He expressed his support of the producers, which will probably increase demand for ethanol as well as corn for its production in the next months and years. Biodiesel industry was not mentioned.

This season, winter wheat crops in the USA are not in a good condition. Temperatures in the country’s wheat belt are high now and the plants are getting out of hibernation. Temperature drop in March will damage them and further worsen their condition. This is matched by the lack of rainfall in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. On the other hand, wheat areas in the USA next season will be much smaller than the current one. Thus, the amount of yield can suffer a considerable decrease down to 50 mln tons, which will be a 10-mln-ton drop on the current yield.

On February 22, 2017, Egypt’s State Company GASC purchased 360,000 tons of wheat from Romania and Russia to be delivered between March 25 and April 4, 2017. In the last 5 days, GASC purchased a total of 720,000 tons of wheat from Russia, Ukraine and Romania in two separate auctions. 4.6 mln tons of wheat have been purchased since the start of the season.  GACS’s purchase rate in the beginning of the season was lower than last year’s level – 3.25 mln tons, but they are much faster now. Wheat price at this auction was higher than the previous one due to the strengthening Russian prices. There were 5 lots of Russian wheat, each of 60,000 tons at 196.5 – 199.3 USD/ton FOB. There was one lot of Ukrainian wheat of 60,000 tons at 195.9 USD/ton FOB. At the previous auction, Russian wheat was sold at FOB prices of 195.0 – 197.0 USD/ton. French wheat was offered at the auction at 199.0 USD/ton, which is a lower price than the most expensive Russian wheat, but the freight was higher than the Russian.

Egypt’s State Company GASC purchased 60,000 tons of soybean oil (versus the planned 25,000 tons) and 30,000 tons of sunflower oil (versus the planned 10,000 tons). Delievery will be made before April 20, 2017.

4.65 mln tons of wheat will have been exported from Argentina between December 2016 and February 2017. The 3-month export will be the biggest for the past 10 years – since the period between December 2007 and February 2008. 6.8 mln tons of wheat were exported then. About 1/3 of the total, 1.4 mln tons, were exported to the usual customer, Brazil.

Oil World reports that India will reduce oilseed oil import in 2016 – 2017 to 14.88 mln tons versus 15.19 mln tons in 2015 – 2016. Soybean oil purchases will be 3.6 mln tons (4.41), rapeseed oil 0.3 mln tons (0.35), sunflower oil 1.85 mln tons (1.53) and palm oil 9.0 mln tons (8.77). Meanwhile, oilseed oil production in India has grown by 1.22 mln tons versus the previous season to 5.83 mln tons. Soybean and rapeseed processing will increase. In the next months, India will be buying a lot of oilseed oil from the world markets and import between April and September will exceed last year’s import by 0.8 mln tons. Oilseed oil consumption in India keeps growing despite slowing down in the current season to +0.7+0.8 mln tons versus +1.2+1.3 mln tons during the last two seasons.

Wheat price – Wheat futures in Chicago went up by 5 cents/bushel yesterday. Taiwan bought 102,850 tons of wheat from the USA while Egypt purchased 360,000 tons from Russia and Ukraine. Jordan and Tunisia bought a total of 100,000 tons of wheat of random origin. 30% of wheat areas in Texas are in a good or excellent condition versus 41% a year earlier.

Soybean price –Soybean futures in Chicago went down by 3.5 cents/bushel yesterday. A group of analysts estimate 2017 soybean areas in the USA at 88.3 mln acres, which is 4.9 mln acres more than last year. Current rain in Brazilian state of Mato Grosso delays the soybean harvesting as well as the sowing of the next crops.

Corn price – Corn futures in Chicago went up by 1.75 cents/bushel yesterday. South Korea purchased 55,000 tons of American corn. Meanwhile, private exporters announced a cancelled sale of 136,000 tons of current yield corn from the USA to South Korea.