PARIS: Euronext wheat steadied on Friday to post a weekly gain as traders weighed continuing war disruption to Black Sea grain trade and increasing competition from Argentina.
December wheat on Euronext settled 0.4 percent up at €233.50 (USD257.60) a metric ton after the day session. On Thursday, the front-month contract had dropped 1.6 percent, retreating from Wednesday’s three-week high of €237.25. Over the week, the benchmark was still up 3.6 percent, after recovering from last Friday’s four-month low of €218.50.
Chicago wheat rebounded more sharply on Friday, with some traders seeing Thursday’s slide in grains as overdone. The wheat market has been wrestling with prospects for Russia-Ukraine talks that resumed this week, with an initial lack of progress towards a Black Sea shipping truce disappointing some traders.
“Wheat … recovered amid renewed uncertainty surrounding Russia–Ukraine peace negotiations, although expectations for abundant global supplies, particularly from Southern Hemisphere producers, continue to limit gains,” Ole Hansen, Saxo Bank’s head of commodity strategy, said in a note.
Attacks on shipping have choked Russia’s and Ukraine’s exports through the Black Sea. Russian seaborne grain shipments were down 56 percent in October, data from industry sources showed on Friday, with increased flows through the Baltic Sea only partly offsetting a collapse in Black Sea volumes.
Curtailed Black Sea trade has supported a spike in demand for French wheat, including rare shipments to Saudi Arabia and trader talk of sales to China. But an Algerian tender this week underscored competition from the Southern Hemisphere, with traders expecting Argentine supplies to cover a substantial part of around 700,000 tons of wheat bought by Algeria.
Argentina’s Rosario Grains Exchange on Thursday raised its 2026/27 wheat production forecast by 500,000 metric tons to 24.3 million tons due to better-than-expected weather conditions.
In France, farmers were wrapping up soft wheat sowing, with 93 percent of the expected area for next year’s crop planted by Monday, farm office FranceAgriMer said.