Paris wheat steadies after French sale to Egypt

PARIS: Euronext front-month wheat futures turned higher on Tuesday after an earlier one-week low as a large sale of French wheat to Egypt boosted export sentiment.

March milling wheat on the Paris-based Euronext exchange, settled up 2.50 euros, or 1.1pc, at 226.00 euros ($271.52) a tonne.

It earlier fell to 222.25 euros, its lowest since Jan. 25, before again holding support around 222 euros.

Further-away delivery positions for 2021 crop ended slightly lower.

Euronext front-month prices had been retreating from a 7-1/2 year high of 240.25 euros in mid-January in line with a pullback in Chicago wheat.

Talk of sizeable Australian wheat shipments to China, which could curb strong Chinese imports of French wheat this season, and speculation that planned export taxes could spur farmer selling in Russia also cooled the Euronext rally, traders said.

But Tuesday's sale of 240,000 tonnes of French wheat to Egypt, as part of a 480,000 tonne tender purchase by state buyer GASC, revived French exports.

"Exporters have let go of some French supplies they had while China looks like taking a fair bit of Australian wheat," one trader said.

A fall in the euro to its lowest in around two months against the dollar also brightened European export prospects.

In Poland, exporter purchase offers for 12.5pc protein wheat fell about 10 zloty on the week to around 990 zloty (220.9 euros) a tonne for February delivery to port silos, tracking the recent weakness in Paris.

"Polish 12.5pc protein wheat is still competitive on the world market," one Polish trader said.

"There is quite heavy activity in the ports with a lot of small coasters loading wheat and other grains for the inter-EU market. But only one large ship is loading Polish wheat for third countries, a vessel in Gdynia taking on 30,000 tonnes for Algeria."

Poland is thought to have sizeable export supplies, despite heavy shipments as demand from domestic buyers is still low, he said.