AUSTRALIA shipped 891,201 tonnes of barley to China in December to kick off its current-crop shipments, according to the latest export data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The figure is made up of 355,905t of malting and 535,296t of feed, and compares with the previous month, when no barley was shipped to China.

Its purchases make up the vast majority of December’s barley shipments, and help to explain the delay in loading vessels at Western Australian ports bound for Brisbane and Newcastle while export cargoes of barley, wheat and canola took precedence over domestic shipments.

While Australia’s exports of barley are thought to have continued in high volume during January, trade sources have said they are likely to dwindle this month as China processes submissions to its anti-dumping investigation into Australian barley pricing.

Sorghum exports have dwindled to a trickle, and trade sources have said a handful of bulk shipments were all that was likely from the crop currently being harvested.

This is due to light testweights and high screenings in a number of crops being harvested in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, and the shortage of locally grown feedgrain in both states.

Table 1: ABS figures for Australia’s malting barley exports from July to December 2018.

Table 2: ABS figures for Australia’s feed barley exports from July to December 2018.

Table 3: ABS figures for Australia’s sorghum exports from July to December 2018.