European wheat futures in Paris hit new three-week highs on Wednesday, boosted by a strong overnight rise in U.S. futures in Chicago plus brisk demand in export tenders.
U.S. grains and soybeans rose sharply on Tuesday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cut its forecasts of U.S. corn and soybean inventories and harvests.
"Euronext is still digesting the bullish USDA report seen yesterday," said Stefan Vogel, head of agricultural commodity markets research at Rabobank.
Robust export demand was also supportive, with a tender from Turkey for a hefty 550,000 tonnes of wheat closing on Wednesday and another tender for an unspecified volume from Algeria on Thursday.
December milling wheat on the Paris-based Euronext exchange was up €0.50, or 0.2%, at €212.50 ($249.67) a tonne at 1523 GMT.
The contract earlier on Wednesday hit €213.25, the highest since 21 October and exceeding Tuesday’s high of €212.50.
A public holiday in France meant some market participants were absent.
'Continued Export Optimism'
In Poland, prices were firm on continued export optimism, with hopes part of the hefty purchase of 860,000 tonnes of wheat in a tender by Saudi Arabia on Monday would be sourced in Poland.
“Exporters expect that a lot of the last Saudi tender will be sourced from Poland and are active buyers for 12.5% protein wheat with the delivery to the port silo in December as well as in January and February 2021,” one Polish trader said. “Polish wheat is still competitive on the world market.”
Exporter purchase prices for December delivery 12.5% wheat have risen 10 zloty on the week to about 920 zloty a tonne (€205.3), traders said.
A busy programme of export ship loadings was also supporting.
In Gdynia one multi-national trading house is loading a ship with 65,000 tonnes of wheat and another multinational trader is loading 55,000 tonnes in Szczecin, both for unidentified destinations.
In Germany, brisk export sales also continued to support.
Standard bread wheat with 12% protein for November delivery in Hamburg was offered for sale at about €2 over Paris December, unchanged from Tuesday.
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