EU wheat higher with Chicago as Black Sea uncertainty lingers

PARIS, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Euronext wheat rose on Friday, supported by a rebound in Chicago futures and ongoing war disruption to Black Sea grain exports.

December wheat BL2Z6 on Euronext settled up 1.6% at €232 ($268.22) a metric ton. It posted a 1.8% weekly gain after moving away from a three-week low struck on Wednesday.

Chicago wheat Wv1 climbed as much as 2%, recovering from a four-week low on Thursday. A fall in the dollar index USD=, after the U.S. economy unexpectedly shed jobs in July, and positioning before U.S. Department of Agriculture crop forecasts next week supported Chicago prices. GRA/

Traders have been weighing disruption to shipments from Russia and Ukraine against large global supply and slow demand from importers.

On Thursday, the governor of Ukraine's Odesa Region said a Russian attack had damaged a foreign-flagged ship loaded with wheat, while on Friday traders said there was more unconfirmed talk of drone attacks at Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk that may have damaged vessels.

"The market remains finely balanced," British merchant Frontier Agriculture said in a note.

"While Black Sea tensions provide a floor for wheat prices, high EU wheat prices are curbing demand from North African and Middle Eastern buyers, who are also receiving their own harvests."

Grain export activity in France remained dominated by large barley shipments to China, with wheat exports limited to smaller cargoes to West African and intra-European markets, LSEG data showed. GRAIN/SHP/FR

France's agriculture ministry trimmed its estimate of this year's soft wheat crop by 100,000 tons from last month to 31.9 million tons, confirming a moderate impact on wheat from heatwaves.

For grain maize, the ministry projected a 35% drop in production from last year to the lowest level since at least 1980, but at 9 million tons its forecast was still well above analyst estimates of the weather-ravaged crop.