Grain exports from Rouen surge as North African cargoes resume
Grain exports from the French port of Rouen, Europe’s biggest cereal-shipping hub, jumped almost fourfold in the latest week as cargoes for North Africa resumed, Bloomberg reports.
Shipments increased to 56,425 metric tons between Aug. 2 and Aug. 8 from 14,510 tons a week earlier, the Seine River port wrote in an e-mailed report today. Deliveries of soft wheat, which accounted for all of the prior week’s cargoes, climbed to 49,025 tons.
Algeria was the largest soft-wheat buyer in the latest period. The previous week was the fifth in which no grain was dispatched to North Africa from Rouen, the longest stretch in at least two years, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Rouen accounted for 41 percent of France’s grain exports by sea in 2010-11, ahead of La Pallice on the Bay of Biscay, with a share of 17 percent, and Dunkirk on the North Sea, at 11 percent of the total, according to port figures.