Black Sea wheat buyers turn to France
Rouen and La Pallice have loaded more wheat in the last five weeks than in the same weeks of any season since 2022/23, on a smaller crop, for African buyers that Russia and Ukraine cannot serve. The window stays open until Argentina's new crop arrives or the Black Sea routes reopen.
Wheat buyers in West and North Africa who normally load in the Black Sea are coming to France. Rouen and La Pallice loaded 1.01 Mt of wheat in the five weeks to 4 November, the most at this point of the season since 2022/23, and 0.33 Mt in the last week alone against 0.13 on average. After trailing the five-season average by 13 to 26% from late July to the end of September, the running total has caught up at 2.58 Mt. It did so on a smaller crop: FranceAgriMer puts the harvest at 31.49 Mt against 33.35 a year ago, and has trimmed its export outlook from 14.5 to 13.57 Mt since July.
The customers Russia and Ukraine cannot reach
Morocco has been a steady buyer since the start of the season, and the latest week added Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Togo, Mauritania and Sudan, with Egypt in the weeks before, some of them markets where French wheat rarely competes. Their usual suppliers are stuck. Russia has shipped 8.68 Mt since July, less than half its average for the period, and Ukraine is 40% behind its own pace. With both countries' sea routes close to unusable since the summer, price no longer decides who loads; availability does.
Nobody else is filling the gap yet
- Canada shipped a fifth more than a year ago in August and September, but the extra went to Asia and Latin America. Its sales to West and North Africa slipped.
- Argentina still had 4.23 Mt of old-crop wheat in store in October, a million tonnes more than usual, but it has been selling it to Brazil, Indonesia and Chile.
Our reading: a window with two edges
France is loading because two doors are shut at the same time, and each will reopen on its own timetable. The Argentine harvest is only 8% done and usually reaches about a third by the end of November, so new-crop Argentine wheat should not compete for these buyers before December. Even before that crop is in, Argentine wheat is quoted $4.75/t under French wheat delivered into Algeria. The Black Sea is the larger unknown: the USDA has Russia ending the season with 19.09 Mt of wheat in store, its largest in over two decades, and Ukraine with 6.1 Mt, three times last season's: a lot of grain waiting for a way out. Three signals will show how long the window stays open.
- Weekly loadings at Rouen and La Pallice. Holding near the pace of the last five weeks into December would make these buyers an outlet for French wheat, not a stopgap. Falling back under the average would make the jump a handful of cargoes.
- The Argentine harvest. Once it passes a third, new-crop wheat reaches the same buyers. French loadings that hold through it would mean France keeps the business on more than availability.
- Russian and Ukrainian shipments. A normal month of Russian loadings, or steady flow out of the Azov ports, would put that stock on the water and in front of the same buyers.
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