HAMBURG: Euronext wheat futures surged on Monday to their highest in over three months as Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities in retaliation for a blast on a bridge to Crimea revived fears over war disruption to Black Sea grain exports.
Benchmark December milling wheat on the Paris-based Euronext unofficially closed up 4.7%, or 16.50 euros, at 364.50 euros ($353.38) a tonne, after earlier touching its highest since June 22 at 365.00 euros.
Chicago wheat rose over 7%.
“It’s all about the war news,” one futures dealer said. “The outlook for the grain corridor looks more and more uncertain.” A UN-supervised Black Sea corridor for Ukrainian grain exports has helped curb high prices since the summer, but the current agreement expires in November.
In France, a strike at oil refineries has left a third of the country’s petrol stations short of fuel caused concern about disruption to agriculture as farmers continue harvesting and begin sowing for next year.
France has released strategic fuel reserves for sugar producers.
In Germany, brisk loading of ships with wheat for export continued following large sales of German wheat earlier this year after the war in Ukraine started.
“A ship is loading about 65,000 tonnes of wheat in Germany for Iran this week and another is set to load about 65,000 tonnes for Saudi Arabia,” one German trader said.
Iran was estimated to be Germany’s largest export destination in September with traders now estimating Germany shipped over 300,000 tonnes to the country last month.
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