Ölsaaten News, 03/10/2023

Rapeseed prices are also under fire this week. The front month of May lost on all days of this trading week so far. At the closing bell on Thursday, the May date and the following August contract slipped below the psychologically important mark of EUR 500 per ton. Since the beginning of March, the May date has lost around 30 euros per ton in value. The fact that rapeseed prices have fallen is partly due to growing hopes of an extension of the grain agreement for Ukraine. Even if corn and wheat are mainly shipped via the Black Sea, the ability to deliver oilseeds such as rapeseed and soybeans should continue to benefit from the agreement. As of Monday, talks between representatives of the United Nations and Russia will be held in Geneva. The supply situation in Germany and Europe as a whole is good. On the one hand, the EU rapeseed harvest was significantly better than last year and the prospects for the coming rapeseed harvest are also positive. The French consulting company Strategie Grains recently increased its forecast slightly and expects a slightly higher volume for this year's harvest than in the previous year.The USDA also revised its assessment of the global rapeseed harvest slightly upwards in the WASDE on Wednesday. In addition, there are very dynamic imports into the EU-27. By March 5th, 2023 (36th calendar week of the current marketing year), 5.67 million tons of rapeseed were imported. There are also 1.88 million tons of sunflowers. This means that around 60 percent more rapeseed was imported than at the same time last year. Sunflower imports in the previous marketing year were just 337,047 tons at this point. Unlike rapeseed, soya has increased since the beginning of the month. Little has changed in the fundamental data. Harvest forecasts for drought-stricken Argentina remain bleak and are being revised downwards by the week. Most recently, the USDA cut the harvest significantly in its March WASDE on Wednesday. While the February WASDE still showed a soybean production volume of 41 million tons for Argentina, the experts at the US Department of Agriculture are now only assuming an Argentine harvest of 33 million tons. The grain exchange in Argentina itself is even more skeptical. The stock exchange in Rosario is only expecting a quantity of 27 million tons and has thus reduced its own previous forecast by 7 million tons.Nothing has changed in the weather situation in the South American country. For Brazil, the local agricultural authority Conab also reported a reduction in the soybean harvest forecast yesterday. The authority's previous estimate was reduced from 1.4 million tons to 151.4 million tons. In Wednesday's WASDE report, the USDA assumes Brazilian production of 153 million tons. Overall, global soybean production was corrected slightly downwards in the WASDE report, which is mainly due to the crop estimate in Argentina. Weak export sales, in particular yesterday, caused a reversal. On the cash markets in this country, soybean meal prices are once again firmer in this week, which is almost over, while rapeseed meal prices are developing differently from region to region. Rapeseed is also falling this week as a result of lower global prices. With the start of this Friday, rapeseed prices on the Euronext/Matif in Paris are falling further south.