AUSTRALIA exported 371,950 tonnes of barley to China in January, down 58 per cent from 889,701t shipped in December, according to the latest export data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
This reflects China’s unofficial moratorium on imports of Australian feed barley as it works its way through submissions into its anti-dumping investigation tied to Australian barley pricing, and also its steady demand for Australian malting barley .
The data also shows the dwindling of Australian feed barley shipments into Middle East in December and January.
This points to competition from Black Sea barley into Saudi Arabia in particular, and also the premium the Newcastle and Brisbane port markets were prepared to pay over export parity.
At least 100,000t of Western Australian barley in total was shipped to those ports in December and January, as eastern Australian grain users set about the filling their requirements with interstate grain because drought had reduced regional production to a negligible quantity.
Barley and sorghum exports, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS):
MALTING | Nov | Dec | Jan | Tonnes |
China | 0 | 354405 | 338447 | 692852 |
Japan | 20600 | 0 | 21017 | 41617 |
Malaysia | 104 | 0 | 0 | 104 |
New Zealand | 941 | 994 | 0 | 1935 |
Thailand | 332 | 0 | 0 | 332 |
Vietnam | 2891 | 5706 | 11192 | 19789 |
TOTAL | 24868 | 361104 | 370656 | 756628 |
Table 1: ABS malting barley export data for November and December 2018 and January 2019.
FEED | Nov | Dec | Jan | Tonnes |
China | 0 | 535296 | 33503 | 568799 |
Hong Kong | 9 | 6 | 14 | 29 |
Indonesia | 0 | 0 | 22 | 22 |
Japan | 0 | 80050 | 0 | 80050 |
Korea | 720 | 414 | 301 | 1435 |
Malaysia | 0 | 420 | 204 | 624 |
New Caledonia | 2 | 15 | 0 | 17 |
Papua New Guinea | 83 | 50 | 40 | 173 |
Philippines | 328 | 247 | 188 | 763 |
Qatar | 0 | 22000 | 0 | 22000 |
Saudi Arabia | 66000 | 0 | 0 | 66000 |
Taiwan | 905 | 2960 | 4736 | 8601 |
Thailand | 2302 | 1332 | 2497 | 6130 |
UAE | 44095 | 11000 | 312 | 55408 |
Vietnam | 0 | 1775 | 1860 | 3635 |
TOTAL | 114443 | 655565 | 43676 | 813684 |
Table 2: ABS feed barley export data for November and December 2018 and January 2019.
SORGHUM | Nov | Dec | Jan | Tonnes |
Fiji | 251 | 0 | 0 | 251 |
Malaysia | 0 | 0 | 23 | 23 |
Philippines | 200 | 200 | 198 | 597 |
Taiwan | 300 | 399 | 100 | 799 |
TOTAL | 751 | 599 | 321 | 1671 |
Table 3: ABS sorghum export data for November and December 2018 and January 2019.
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