The UK's blistering pace of wheat exports accelerated further in November - taking them in five months above the figure that official statisticians have pencilled in for the whole cop year.
UK wheat exports topped 472,000 tonnes in the month, boosted by a 144,000-tonne shipment to Spain, customs data showed.
The spurt took cumulative exports for the 2010-11 crop year, which began in July, to 1.66m tonnes ?more than twice as much as in the same period a year before.
Furthermore, it took the shipments total above the exportable surplus of 1.33m tonnes which the UK farm ministry, Defra, has pencilled in for the whole year.
Indeed, analysts have been increasingly dismissive of the Defra estimate, which is calculated around a methodology of factoring in an average year-end stocks level, of 2.0m tonnes in this case.
UK wheat exports topped 472,000 tonnes in the month, boosted by a 144,000-tonne shipment to Spain, customs data showed.
The spurt took cumulative exports for the 2010-11 crop year, which began in July, to 1.66m tonnes ?more than twice as much as in the same period a year before.
Furthermore, it lifted the shipments total above the exportable surplus of 1.33m tonnes which the UK farm ministry, Defra in a report last week pencilled in for the whole year.
Running short?
Indeed, analysts have been increasingly dismissive of the Defra estimate, whose methodology relies on factoring in an average year-end stocks level, of 2.0m tonnes in this case.
Earlier this week, Jamie Nolan, the FCStone analyst, termed the Defra projection "unrealistic".
He added that the pace of shipments placed a "question mark over [the UK's] ability to meet sales already on the books with current stocks".
Many analysts believe UK buyers will be increasingly forced to turn to imports as the season progresses.
Leading buyers
Other major importers of UK wheat in November included the Belgium and the Netherlands, who took their purchases so far in 2010-11 to 125,000 tonnes.
Exports to Germany, which suffered a disappointing harvest last summer, added 35,000 to tonnes to reach a cumulative total of 145,000 tonnes so far - more than five times the total for the whole of 2009-10.
Outside the European Union, the UK exported 25,000 tonnes to Tunisia, whose high food prices prompted the overthrow of its president last week.
London wheat for January closed 1.8% higher at ?94.10 a tonne, with the better-traded May lot gaining 1.8% to ?99.00 a tonne.
