Hard red winter wheat export premiums at the US Gulf Coast jumped on Monday as livestock producers competed with importers for supplies, traders said. Cattle producers in the southern Plains were buying wheat as a replacement for corn that is hard to find ahead of the autumn harvest, traders said. The US hard wheat crop is facing demand on different fronts, with Brazil shopping to buy some as a replacement for wheat from neighboring Argentina, which has shut off exports due to a smaller-than-expected harvest.
Premiums rose as much as 7 cents a bushel for lower-quality hard red winter wheat, the type that would be fed to livestock, according to data from CME Group Inc. Hard red winter wheat, grown in the Great Plains, is typically better quality than US soft red winter wheat, grown in the Midwest and eastern third of the country. Iraq's state grain board showed that quality wheat was in demand, traders said, by purchasing 50,000 tonnes of Australian-origin wheat in a tender that closed last week.
Iraq needs the wheat for blending purposes and bought Australian wheat for well over the lowest offer for lower quality Russian wheat, traders said. Still, Russia's top agricultural forecasters increased their wheat export expectations for July, citing greater demand from buyers in North Africa and the Middle East than previously expected. Algeria's state grains agency OAIC launched a tender to buy 50,000 tonnes of optional-origin milling wheat for shipment in November, traders said.
Comments
Comments are closed.