Dry weather may cut the European Union's 2011 rapeseed crop to a three-year low of 19.5 million tonnes from 20.59 million tonnes in 2010, Hamburg-based oilseeds analysts Oil World said on Tuesday. "The deterioration of rapeseed production prospects is about to reach alarming proportions," Oil World said.
The new estimate is down from the analyst's April crop forecast of 20.13 million tonnes as rapeseed is suffering from exceptionally dry weather following a very hard winter, Oil World said. "We have received new information about larger-than expected damage from frost and dryness," it said.
German 2011 rapeseed output may fall to 4.75 million tonnes from 5.75 million last year, it said. This is down from 4.90 million tonnes forecast for Germany in April. Germany is likely to lose its position as the EU's top rapeseed producer to France which could harvest 5.10 million tonnes of rapeseed, up from 4.82 million tonnes last year, it said. The French forecast is also 100,000 tonnes down on April.
"Some of our sources suggest that we may still be on the high side in our production estimates for Germany," it said. Some sources put Germany's crop as low as 4.5-4.7 million tonnes and France's at 4.8-5.0 million tonnes which could mean an EU crop of between 19.2--19.4 million tonnes, it said The outlook in no. 3 producer Britain is better and the crop is likely to rise to 2.38 million tonnes from 2.23 million tonnes last year, it said.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.