Rapeseed rose nearly 3% to E334.00 a tonne for August delivery, a contract high, and the best price for a near-term lot for 19 months.
The better-traded November lot notched up similar records by touching E338.75 a tonne.
The rises reflected the impact of Canada’s sodden spring - which the Canadian Wheat Board estimates will leave up to 12.5m acres of cropland in the west of the country unsown on hopes for production of canola, the rapeseed variant.
Furthermore, the harvest in Ukraine, a key exporter to the European Union, has been dented by winterkill.
“There are problems in Canada, there are problems in Ukraine, and prices of these are higher once you have got them into the EU,” David Sheppard at UK grain merchant Gleadell said.
“Therefore, our market probably has to go up a bit.”
Crushers’ needs
At Macquarie Securities, the investment bank, commodities analyst Alex Bos said that the rise in Paris rapeseed prices was “definitely a spillover from Canada’s canola situation”, which looked set in particular to hit exports.
“Canada’s canola crushers have expended crushing capacity, and to keep those plants running they need to buy enough in the domestic market,” Mr Bos told Agrimoney.com.
“That will limit export availability.”
Canada’s farm ministry last month estimated domestic canola use jumping by 21% to nearly 6m tonnes in 2010-11, with exports falling 7.1% to 6.5m tonnes. The ministry will unveil fresh data later this month.
Global impact
A slide in exports is unlikely to have a direct impact on Europe, which operates strict curbs on biotech crops, which comprise the great majority of Canada’s canola/rapeseed harvest.
However, it would encourage other importers to raise their rapeseed prices, so lifting the whole market.
“The real danger for Europe is if higher world prices take Ukrainian exports away from Europe to another market,” Mr Bos said.
Paris’s August rapeseed contract closed up E3.00 at E327.75 a tonne, with the November lot ending E2.75 higher at E332.50 a tonne.
In Winnipeg, canola for July delivery stood 2.6% higher at Can$426.90 a tonne at 17:30 GMT, its highest since August last year, and setting course for an eighth successive day of gains.

Source: http://www.agrimoney.com/news/canada-woes-send-paris-rapeseed-to-19-month-high–1857.html

Posted: 17 June 2010 under Agri Trading, Agribusiness worldwide.
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Jack Thurston | February 5th, 2010 - 11:20 am

The biggest driver for further reform of the CAP is budgetary. At a time when most governments are struggling with vast budget deficits, public expenditure is under pressure as never before. Policy-makers are looking for ways to trim budgets, to get better value for public money and to ensure that budgets are aligned with their most pressing policy priorities. Several years ago the commission initiated a ‘fundamental’ review of the EU budget and it is expected that this will set the scene for the debate over the EU’s finances from 2014 onwards. The views of member states are critical, as they hold the EU’s purse strings. James Clasper and I have this week published a new analysis of the views of member states on the EU budget and the CAP, based in part on their responses to the budget review consultation. As part of the analysis we created a typology of member states, with five categories: Gold Diggers, happy to reap the benefits of integration and let others pick up the tab; Misers, fans of budget discipline and a smaller CAP, but keen to claim compensation for their net balance deficits; Big Spenders, who want an ambitious budget but are prepared to pay for it; Modernisers, who want to keep the budget under control but also to simplify its structure and Fence-Sitters, quick to pay lip service to the idea of budgetary discipline, but still keen to maintain CAP spending levels.

Source:http://capreform.eu/does-the-cap-fit/

Posted: 17 June 2010 under Agribusiness worldwide, Europe.
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Swiss-held Alimenta Group, the shareholder of Expur Urziceni - producer of vegetable oil brand Ulcom, which last year entered the biodiesel market, will sell all vegetable oil and biodiesel production divisions held via Expur Urziceni to French giant Sofiproteol, but will retain 13,000 hectares of farming land in Galati county.

“Agricultural operations, which belong to some of the Expur shareholders are not included in this sale. Agricultural operations involved around 13,000 hectares in the Calarasi area, close to the Danube, where rapeseed, sunflower, wheat, barley, and maize are grown,” said Richard Radag, president of Expur Urziceni, without, however, revealing the name of the corporate entity through which the Swiss own these plots.

Alimenta Group started negotiations with Sofiproteol for the sale of Expur Urziceni - the biggest biodiesel producer in Europe, with 5.5 billion euros in turnover, with the due diligence process being close to completion. Representatives of Alimenta and Sofiproteol, which will be advised both by Romanian and French law firms, did not reveal the value of the transaction. However, sources from the industry say the French could pay between 60 and 100 million euros for Expur, making it the biggest transaction on the local vegetable oil market.

Source: http://www.mirzon.eu/news/june-2010/17-june-2010-3.html

Posted: 17 June 2010 under Europe, Romania.
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