Grain and Veg Oil Highlights August 22, 2016 Aug. 22, 2016

WHEAT

- Aug 19 - Tunisia bought 50,000 MT of optional origin durum wheat for shipment between Dec 25-Jan 25:

• 25,000 MT from Casillo at 254.8 $/mt c&f
• 25,000 MT from Glencore at 257.19 $/mt c&f

- Russia's Ag Min said Russia exported about 3.63 MMT of grain between July 1-August 17, 2016/17, down by 4% from 3.796 MMT a year ago, including:

• wheat – 2.976 MMT (2.67 MMT a year ago);
• barley – 589 TMT (934 TMT);
• corn – 39 TMT (169 TMT);
• others – 26 TMT (23 TMT)

- Russia has 3,255,700 MT of grain in its federal intervention fund as of August 19

- Kazakh farmers harvested 2.1 MMT of all grains as of August 22, up from 1.56 MMT a year ago. Yields totalled 2.01 mt/ha up from 1.55 mt/ha a year ago

- Romania reaped a bumper wheat crop of 8.4 MMT this year, 7% up from 2015 at a 10-year record high yield (4.054 mt/ha vs. 3.84 mt/ha in 2015)

- Sparks Polska lowered its Polish wheat crop forecast to 10.4-10.5 MMT, from 10.7 MMT previously and against 11.9 MMT harvested in 2015

CORN

- Aug 19 - Argentina grants export licenses for 80,513 MT of corn

SOYBEAN

- Aug 19 - USDA announced export sales of 261,000 MT of US soybeans to unknown destinations for delivery during 2016/17

- Argentine soy planting area will shrink by up to 4% this year as farmers use more land to produce corn. Acsoja forecasts soy area will drop 2.5% to 19.7 million hectares; Agritrend – by 4% to 19.3 mln ha and Agripac – to 19.5-20 mln ha vs. 20.2 mln ha in 2015/16

- Surveyor Intertek Testing Services estimated Malaysia's August 1-20 palm oil exports at 1,027,039 MT up 25.6% from a month ago

- Surveyor SGS estimated Malaysia's August 1-20 palm oil exports at 1,045,079 MT up 27.4% from a month ago