International

Markets found a bid to close out the week ahead of the Memorial Day long weekend. The week started with ideas that Russia would allow exports from the Ukraine, and respond to a global call for humanitarian consideration.  It appears Russia will only comply if sanctions against it are dropped.  As the reality of the Russian stance sunk in, markets looked at other relief points. India has moved from the silver bullet to another potential catalyst. Crop estimates are dropping and the idea it will lift its recently imposed export limitations looks unlikely at best. The French crop dropped another 4 per cent to 69pc good to excellent, down 20pc in the last few weeks.

Corn remains the sleeper. With the wheat-corn spread at USD$4.50/bu and near record yields needed to keep the status quo, it still doesn’t feel like we have enough risk premium baked into corn values.

Australia

Bids for wheat and barley fell roughly $10-$15/t over last week on current crop, while new-crop multigrade bids to growers were relatively unchanged. Barley markets fell $5-$10/t over last week on current crop, while northern feedgrain values were mixed. Canola bounced back on Friday, with new- crop bids up $20-$30/t.

Apart from rain in New South Wales, it was a relatively dry weekend across the Australian grainbelt.In NSW, there are plenty of reports of seed burst, crops under water or washed away, or not planted at all because of ongoing wet conditions.  Resowing will be on the agenda for many in central and northern NSW; in some cases, winter-crop area will be left for summer crops, most likely cotton. The forecast is for more rain this week for most of NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

Port congestion ramped up again this week with wait times increasing from 16 to 18 days in Albany, 26 to 29 days in Brisbane and 17 to 21 days at Pinkenba. Wait times fell from 25 to 23 in Kwinana,  with 11 vessels anchored and waiting to load.