CBH Group’s Albany terminal broke its grain-shipment record in December, contributing to a national wheat figure which was slightly ahead of January’s. Photo: Southern Ports

AUSTRALIA exported 2,437,890 tonnes of wheat in January, down 2 per cent from 2,484,740t shipped in December, according to the latest export data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Indonesia with 547,665t followed by The Philippines on 336,858t and Vietnam on 248,971t were the biggest buyers of January-shipment wheat.

Market Check head of strategy Nick Crundall said January was the second consecutive month of big volumes.

“It’s unlikely to be the last, given we have such a large exportable surplus to ship this season,” Mr Crundall said.

Backing this up is USDA data released overnight that has increased the estimate of Australia’s 2020-21 wheat export to 22 million tonnes (Mt), up from 20Mt forecast last month.

“When we dig into the data, Western Australia was the major contributor which is of little surprise, while Indonesia was the largest importer of our wheat for the month.

“This was closely followed by The Philippines and Vietnam, while Chinese volumes dropped off to 167,754t after a very strong December.

“Containers were impressive, but still below what we managed to churn out in 2016-17, owing to continued tightness in available containers and freight.”

Table 1: Australian containerised wheat exports for November and December 2020 and January 2021. Source: ABS

Table 2: Australian bulk wheat exports for November and December 2020 and January 2021. Source: ABS