US corn and soybean futures closed higher overnight. Corn basically got a leg up from soybeans but also some short covering. Soybeans were firmer on the back of a good US crush number for December. With the higher crush number also comes higher soy oil stocks though which in turn appeared to do little to help ICE canola and Paris rapeseed futures which both suffered losses. ICE numbers were not too bad and the improved CAD / AUD relationship should counter the decline there but Paris did fall by E4.75 / tonne on the nearby which may result in some weakness in export canola values in Australia today.
US SRW and HRW futures both closed lower, the May chart is a mess and after two days of sharp losses is now heavily oversold and is open to some serious short covering if there is a weather scare. Looks like many other years leading into the N.Hemisphere spring to me. With US weekly export wheat inspections at 368kt, the higher end of the trade guess, it may be starting to indicate the US price is finally low enough to buy a slice of the international market once again.
Tunisia are tendering for 75kt of durum for shipment March / April, we’ll keep an eye on that one to see where local offers here should be made going into the second half of this month.
Egypt picked up another 295kt of Russian wheat at US$197 – US$198 FOB, freight to Egypt will be between US$13.75 and US$15.15 per tonne. So say US$212 CnF Egypt, not much has changed at the international level.
NCDEX chickpea futures are back about AUD$11 on the nearby and carry to May is roughly AUD$19 per tonne. Local price AUD$565 Narrabri packer.