If you take oilseeds out of the picture the US grain futures market was pretty flat last night. Soybeans at Chicago closed 13.25c/bu higher in the May slot. This had the usual knock on affect to Winnipeg canola and Paris rapeseed futures, both closed higher. WTI crude rallied hard, up US$9.29/b to US$96.49/b, as I write, Brent crude also saw similar increases closing at US$101.43/b in the May slot. Palm oil was up AUD$14.03/t in the May slot.
The volatility in oil, thus oilseeds, continues to leave some of us scratching our heads as products defy local and global S&Ds in some cases. As for the world cash market we now see Canadian canola values roughly net US$15.00 higher than Aussie values into the Chinese market, good luck sustaining that.

Interesting to see substantial strength in both London feed wheat futures and Paris milling wheat futures overnight. Chicago hard red winter wheat futures, the US primary milling grade, fell 0.25c/bu (-AUD$1.30/t) in the Dec 26 slot to 661.50/bu. Paris milling wheat closed +€3.50/t (AUD$5.70) higher in the Dec 26 slot at €220.25/t. Is this a market beginning to reflect the start of dry spring. Looking at worldagweather.com we see that much of Europe has received very little rain over the last 14 days. Much of France and Germany have seen less than 10mm of rain, some 20%-40% of average rainfall for this time. The dry weather doesn’t end at the French border either, it extends east across Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and into Ukraine. Even parts of the Volga Valley are showing less than average short term rainfall.
This isn’t a concern for Russia, much of Germany or the Black Sea states yet. Their seasons up to now have been pretty good apart from some talk of ice sheets and potential winter kill in parts of Russia, but no more than normal.
Dry weather in Western Europe is worth keeping a close eye on over the next 30-60 days, long way to go yet. Showers are expected in France next week.
US winter wheat conditions are a real fruit salad, some parts too wet, some too dry, the wetter parts do appear to be out numbering the drier parts though.