A cargo of wheat bound for Saudi Arabia loads in August at Emerald Grain’s Melbourne terminal.

AUSTRALIA exported, 2,177,873 tonnes of wheat including durum in August, up 13 per cent from the 1,930,459t shipped in July, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

In the bulk market, Vietnam on 367,292t, The Philippines on 302,843t and Indonesia on 213,901t were the three biggest markets for August shipment, which totalled 1,925,707t (Table 2).

Containerised sales for August (Table 1) totalled 222,166t, with Vietnam on 68,840t, Indonesia on 39,198t and Malaysia on 34,608t the largest markets.

AAAX general manager marketing and trading James Foulsham said the surge in shipping in August could well be a sign of what is to come for the 2021-22 harvest.

“Normally at this time of year, South-east Asia switches a significant proportion of its demand away from Australia to Black Sea, which is normally a lot cheaper as they are coming out of harvest,” Mr Foulsham said.

“However, because of the Russian export tax, Black Sea FOB prices are unusually high this season relative to Australian.

“When you also include the high freight rates we are currently seeing, Australian prices have been more competitive for a longer period so Australian has maintained its dominant position into the Asian markets.

Mr Foulsham said this trend was likely to continue into new crop.

“In addition to this, Australia is starting to see demand from markets or grades that we don’t normally service, for example millers in Asia have had a preference for high protein Canadian CWRS in recent years, but with the drought in Canada they will have to buy more APH and AH from Australia this season.”

Table 1: Australian containerised wheat exports for June, July and August 2021. Source: ABS

Table 2: Australian bulk wheat exports for June, July and August 2021. Source: ABS

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