Strategie Grains lowers EU rapeseed and sunseed crop estimates

PARIS, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Strategie Grains lowered its monthly forecast for this year's rapeseed harvest in the European Union, its fourth successive reduction, as the EU is set to increase imports this season to compensate for the loss. The consultancy estimates the EU rapeseed harvest at 16.9 million metric tons, 340,000 tons below its estimate released late July and more than 15% below last year's level. Expected production was revised down mainly in France, Germany, the Baltic States, Hungary, and Slovakia, it said. "The EU rapeseed balance is forecast very tight in 2024/25 with relatively large deficits in the main EU exporting/consuming countries," the consultancy said. Improved industrial margins for rapeseed crushing in the EU as well as the decline in sunseed crushing, are sustaining demand for rapeseed crushing, although it remains sharply below 2023/24 due to lower production and stocks, it said. The European Commission last week also reduced its monthly forecasts of EU rapeseed production, projecting the crop at 18.0 million. Strategie Grains also reduced by more than 300,000 tons its forecast for the EU sunflower crop to 9.3 million tons, 4% below 2023. Very hot and dry weather has reduced prospects for sunseed production in Romania and Hungary, it said. The soybean harvest, for which the estimate was only slightly reduced, was heading to a record level this year, as large plantings compensated for a fall in yields. The consultancy expects sunseed and rapeseed prices to rise this season compared to the previous marketing year, because of the expected large seed and vegetable oil deficit in the EU and tight world vegetable oils balance sheets, it said. (Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; editing by Barbara Lewis) (([email protected]; +336 8774 4148;))