Wheat

- Japan purchased 125,600 tonnes of milling wheat from the United States, Canada and Australia with delivery from December 21, .2017 to December 31, 2018.

- FranceAgriMer, lowered its forecast for French wheat export in 2017/18 for the first time since early July. The new forecast is by 250,000 tonnes lower than the October one - to 18,112 million tonnes, which is 60% more than 2016/17. The forecast for wheat export to third countries is lowered by 300,000 tonnes to 9.90 million tonnes, which is almost twice as high as 2016/17. Export to the EU countries is raised by 50,000 tonnes to 8,102 million tonnes, up 29.4% from last year.

- In September, 75,300 tonnes of wheat were exported from the United Kingdom given 55,600 tonnes in August, which is less than September 2016. The major buyers were Spain 27,880 tonnes and Ireland 26,500 tonnes. Since the beginning of the season (1.07.2017), 147,160 tonnes of wheat were exported from the United Kingdom to 676,300 tonnes a year earlier. In September, 128,170 tonnes of wheat were imported into the country and 419,090 tonnes (428,450) since the beginning of the season.

- Strategie Grains lowered its assessment of EU-wheat crop in 2018. The areas under cultivation will be 23.5 million hectares, down by 0.3 million hectares less than the October forecast and 0.2 million hectares below the estimate for areas in 2017. Areas of hard wheat remain steady - 2.8 million hectares.

Grain

- FranceAgriMer raised their forecast for the export of feed barley in 2017/18 by 165,000 tonnes compared to the October forecast to 6.78 million tonnes, which is 28.4% more than 2016/17. Forecast on export to third countries is raised by 100,000 tonnes to 3.4 million tonnes (+ 44.2%), and to EU countries by +65,000 tonnes to 3.365 million tonnes (+ 15.7%). The forecast on export of brewing barley remains unchanged from 1.43 million tonnes (+ 1.2%).

- Jordan canceled a tender for the purchase of 100,000 tonnes of feed barley with delivery in the first half of March 2018. A new auction is scheduled for November 28, 2017.

- Strategie Grains left its estimate of barley areas in the EU in 2018 without any change compared to the October forecast of 12.4 million hectares, which is 2% more than the areas in 2017. Corn  areas  2018 crop will drop to 8.5 million hectares (-0.2).

- The French consultancy agency ODA estimates the French corn crop to 14.1 million tonnes and export to 5.5 million tonnes.

- According to data of the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, last week, in Argentina, corn sowing is completed on 1% of the planned areas. Since the beginning of the corn sowing campaign , 35% of the planned areas has been sown, well below the levels of recent years.

Oil crops and vegetable oils

- According to Oil World , in October, import of vegetable oil in India was at minimal level this month over the past four years and reached 1.14 million tonnes (-24% versus September 2016). 751,000 tonnes of palm oil was purchased (873,000 tonnes in October 2016), soybean oil 220,000 tonnes (340,000), sunflower oil 129,000 tonnes (133,000) and rapeseed oil 37,000 tonnes (45,000). During January - October 2017, in India 13 million tonnes of vegetable oil were imported at 11.9 million tonnes a year earlier. Import of soybean, sunflower and rapeseed oil rose to 5.07 million tonnes.

- In October, processed soybean in the US is at 2 years low. So there will be problems with the availability of soybean oil, which raises concerns among food and biodiesel producers.

According to data of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, 92% of the rapeseed areas were harvested in the country as of November 15, 2017, 1.6 million tonnes of rapeseed were harvested, which is 47% more than the same date of 2016. The average yield of rapeseed is 1.74 mt/ ha (+ 44%). The previous record for rapeseed crop in Russia was set in 2014 - 1.34 million tonnes.