PARIS: European wheat prices began the week almost unchanged with sentiment dominated by poor overall demand, despite a big Saudi Arabian purchase and a weak euro, traders said.
December milling wheat on Paris-based Euronext, unofficially closed up 0.3 percent at 163.50 euros a tonne.
Volume was thin in a week that includes a holiday in Germany on Tuesday and one on Wednesday in France.
Saudi Arabia's state grain buyer SAGO purchased 484,000 tonnes of hard wheat with 12.5 percent protein content in a tender on Monday, with Poland seen having a greater chance than Germany in supplying it.
SAGO is a regular buyer of German wheat, but Polish wheat is almost $4 a tonne cheaper, traders said.
"Some German wheat cannot be ruled out but export houses are still thought to have a large volume of previous purchases of German wheat available in their books following low German exports in recent months."
"So the Saudi purchase is not enough to excite the market today."
Seller's premiums for 12.5 percent protein wheat for November/December delivery in Hamburg of the type requested in the Saudi tender were unchanged at 6 euros over the Paris December contract.
Some operators were also looking at whether French wheat could calculate in the tender.
French wheat exports picked up in the past days, mainly on demand from Algeria, its largest export market, which had turned to Baltic States and Argentina for most of its purchases this month.
Several cargoes are loading or awaited in French ports to load wheat for Algeria, including a 63,000-tonne panamax, the first one of the kind in the northern port of Dunkirk. .
The choice of the large cargo was linked to a freight advantage for panamaxes over handysize at the time of shipment and improved unloading capacity at the port of Djen Djen where it is heading for, one exporter said.
Port data also showed a first wheat shipment for Yemen this season.
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