Ships have been waiting for up to a month at France’s biggest grain port to load wheat for Algeria as a rain-hit harvest has forced exporters to compete for a trickle of supply and reinforce quality checks to meet milling standards.
Heavy rain in France, the European Union’s largest wheat producer, has added to worries about global export supplies as harvest prospects have also deteriorated in North America and Russia.
“For the start of the harvest campaign, it’s been a very unusual situation,” Gilles Kindelberger, director of Senalia, the largest silo operator at Rouen, France’s main grain port, said on Monday.
An earlier start to barley harvesting allowed firms to dispatch several barley cargoes to China in July. But delays to wheat harvesting prevented the completion last month at Rouen of any loadings for Algeria – France’s biggest wheat export market, Refinitiv and other shipping data showed.
Just two vessels of French wheat were loaded for Algeria in July, at the west coast port of La Pallice, including one rerouted away from Rouen, the data showed.
“Each time you think you’ll get the harvest supplies but you’re never sure,” an export trader said. “The problem is we’re going to be sorting grain until the end of August.”
The summer rain has led to weak readings for test weights and Hagberg falling numbers, quality criteria for which Algeria has strict requirements.
Traders say some loadings for Algeria have been switched to Germany or Baltic countries and French firms have also been looking to purchase German supplies for later in the season.
The backlog is set to ease at Rouen, with eight ships just loaded or due to load wheat for Algeria so far in August.
Senalia has doubled the size of its team handling incoming grain to expand quality checks, notably for Hagberg falling numbers, Kindelberger said.
A warm, sunny spell forecast from Tuesday could let farmers finish off wheat harvesting in the week ahead.
But with exporters thought to have sold around 1 million tonnes of French wheat to China for loading by September, grain handlers could soon face another logistical rush, traders said.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Gus Trompiz and Forrest Crellin in Paris and Michael Hogan in Hamburg. Editing by Jane Merriman)