Export

Australian Feb malting barley exports drop 33pc, feed lifts

Liz Wells April 21, 2020

MV Soroco is on its way from Viterra’s Port Lincoln terminal to Ningbo in China with barley in a busy export program. Photo: Viterra

AUSTRALIA exported 179,152 tonnes of feed barley in February, up slightly from the January figure, while malting shipments fell by one third over the month to 167,316t, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Sorghum exports remain negligible ahead of the upcoming harvest, and in the face of strong drought-induced domestic demand.

FlexiGrain pool manager Lachlan Hume said February barley exports were on pace with market expectations, but have been largely forgotten given the surge of overseas buying activity since then.

“Thailand, and more importantly, China, have been chipping away purchasing Aussie barley in March, April and further out in the curve.

“This has prompted a sharp increase in our shipping pace.”

FlexiGrain estimates that Australia has 3.5 million tonnes of barley available for export this season from a crop which ABARES has estimated at 8.85Mt.

“We are assuming record domestic inclusions, given the high price of wheat and large relative spread to barley at around $85/t.”

Using shipping stems and making some assumptions on recent purchases, FlexiGrain has compared what is estimated to be shipped by the end of May versus what it believes is available.

The export surplus for wheat is expected to be 81 per cent shipped and barley 74pc shipped by the end of next month.

“To the end of May, we will have exported around 2.6Mt of barley, leaving 900,000t for the last four months of the grain export year which ends on 30 September.

“Only twice in the past 10 years have we exported less than this in the period: 2017/18 and 2018/19.

“In both years, Australian barley priced very close to local wheat, around $10 under, and was away from competing with other export-barley origins.

“If we see an anti-dumping anti-climax and China engage further, barley could run out of sellers in the back half of the marketing year.”

MALTING December 2019
January 2020
February 2020
Tonnes
China 68052 196959 165831 430842
Japan 21000 6180 0 27180
Thailand 1090 1151 1246 3487
Vietnam 4846 46122 240 51207
TOTAL 94988 250411 167316 512715

Table 1: Australian malting barley exports for December 2019 and January and February 2020. Source: ABS

FEED December 2019 January 2020 February 2020 Tonnes
Bahrain 0 43 0 43
China 31500 33000 0 64500
Hong Kong 12 0 21 33
Japan 0 3300 94550 97850
South Korea 541 12693 293 13527
Macau 0 0 4 4
Malaysia 175 166 0 340
New Caledonia 45 0 0 45
New Zealand 5800 0 0 5800
Pakistan 671 0 330 1001
Papua New Guinea 0 0 21 21
Philippines 445 456 606 1506
Singapore 2 1 2 5
Taiwan 8141 4651 3372 16165
Thailand 120731 115751 54522 291005
United Arab Emirates 579 1035 21705 23319
Vietnam 2302 3031 3725 9058
TOTAL 170944 174127 179152 524223

Table 2: Australian feed barley exports for December 2019 and January and February 2020. Source: ABS

SORGHUM December 2019
January 2020
February 2020
Tonnes
Japan 129 0 20 149
Malaysia 0 23 0 23
Philippines 264 264 192 720
Taiwan 100 0 100 200
Vietnam 0 0 4 4
TOTAL 493 287 316 1096

Table 3: Australian sorghum exports for December 2019 and January and February 2020. Source: ABS

 

 

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