PARIS: Paris wheat futures eased on Monday, curbed by weakness in Chicago and growing doubts over whether exports from western Europe will pick up after a slow start to the season.
March milling wheat, the most active contract on the Paris-based Euronext exchange, settled 1 euro, or 0.5 percent, lower at 203.75 euros ($233.78) a tonne.
Chicago wheat was down by about 1 percent.
Latest European Union data showed that soft wheat exports remained well below last season's, with shipments of 8.6 million tonnes so far in 2018/19, down 26 percent year on year.
Expectations that dwindling supplies in Russia would create export demand for EU and US wheat were also tempered on Monday by confirmation of the Russian agriculture ministry's outlook for 2018/19 grain shipments.
Export prospects for France, the EU's top wheat supplier, would depend on an upturn in sales in African markets beyond its main outlet of Algeria, traders and analysts said.
"To gain market share in Morocco and West Africa, French wheat needs to become $4 to $5 a tonne more competitive," consultancy Agritel said in a note.
"It remains to be seen if that will come from an increase in US or Black Sea prices, a fall in French prices, or a bit of both."
Mounting EU grain imports, which have turned the bloc into a net cereal importer for the first time in a decade, were also hanging over the market.
Traders said a jump in weekly EU maize imports, based on customs data, is likely to be down to importers using licences available in January under annual quotas to clear already-unloaded Ukrainian maize, notably in Spain.
In Germany, where drought last summer created a shortfall in livestock forage, feed grain imports were continuing. One trader noted a cargo of 50,000 tonnes of Romanian maize being unloaded.
Strong feed demand has kept feed wheat prices above milling wheat levels in Germany this season.
Feed wheat in the South Oldenburg market for January/March delivery was offered for sale above milling wheat at about 217 euros a tonne, down 1 euro, with buyers at about 216 euros.
In Hamburg, standard bread wheat with 12 percent protein for January delivery in Hamburg was offered for sale unchanged at 3 euros over Paris March.
Concern over international trade, amid the continuing US-China tariff dispute and uncertainty over the terms of Britain's exit from the EU, were also weighing on sentiment, traders said.
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