Cereals office ONIC is next week expected to raise its forecast for French soft wheat ending stocks in the 2003/2004 season by half a million tonnes to 2.3 million tonnes, traders said on Friday.
The sharp rise is due mainly to lower estimates for domestic wheat consumption combined with lower exports, they said.
This year's ending stocks would nevertheless remain well below last season's four million tonnes.
The provisional January forecasts were discussed at a meeting on Thursday and still need to be formally approved at ONIC's monthly meeting on Wednesday next week.
ONIC is expected to cut 300,000 tonnes from its forecast of wheat use in animal feed to 6.4 millions de tonnes.
Sales to other EU member states would fall by 75,000 tonnes to 8.34 million and exports to non-EU countries would be reduced by 100,000 tonnes to 3.3 million, down more than 60 percent on last year.
But some traders said the export forecast may still be too ambitious.
"This estimate looks like a maximum," a trader who attended the ONIC meeting told Reuters, adding the recent rise of the euro against the dollar would strongly impact exports.
For barley, ONIC is expected to raise its end stocks forecast by 200,000 tonnes to 1.2 million tonnes, still below last season's 1.8 million.
Similar to wheat, the rise is mainly due to lower exports, expected to fall to 1.35 million tonnes from the 1.6 million seen in December and three million tonnes exported last season.
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