Export

January wheat exports at 1.17Mt, down 16pc from December

Liz Wells, March 13, 2018

AUSTRALIA shipped 1.17 million tonnes of wheat in January, down 16 per cent from 1.4Mt in December, according to export data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Vietnam on 34,331t and Myanmar on 25,914t were again the biggest markets for containerised wheat, while Indonesia on 217,690t and Japan on 161,893t took the biggest bulk tonnages.

Five Middle East customers — Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Yemen — all took bulk cargoes in January, supplementing demand from Asia and the Pacific.

“Countries like Kuwait and Iraq have a generally inelastic demand for wheat, so it is nothing out of the ordinary for us to do a few cargoes early in the season to these destinations,” Market Check head of strategy, Nick Crundall, said.

Indonesia’s bulk imports of Australian wheat in January at 217,690t were 27pc below the December figure of 299,551t .

“Wheat exports to Indonesia are showing that Australian exports to this region aren’t as inelastic as once thought, with millers illustrating their ability to switch out of Aussie origin into Russian when the spreads warrant such a move.

“It would suggest our exports into Southeast Asia will continue to lag through the season as we maintain a healthy premium over Russian wheat into the region.

“If we dig deeper, Indonesia is leading the charge in switching out of Australian origin as they become more comfortable with Black Sea quality and consistency of supply.

“This is going to be an ongoing issue for Australia as millers continually improve the value proposition of using Black Sea wheat over Australian.”

…………………….

Table 1: ABS data showing Australia’s containerised wheat exports, including revised December 2017 figures.

Destination Nov Dec Jan Total tonnes
China 4892 4557 5817 15266
Fiji 2929 2318 1821 7068
French Polynesia 250 0 175 425
Hong Kong 74 24 24 122
India 0 23 0 23
Indonesia 4296 5767 15435 25498
Japan 0 0 2964 2964
Malaysia 18755 23783 18704 61242
Myanmar 26825 24411 25914 77150
New Caledonia 3170 2988 3104 9262
New Zealand 10260 8588 9740 28588
Papua New Guinea 120 796 574 1490
Philippines 7034 16959 16942 40935
Saudi Arabia 1038 1420 750 3208
Singapore 1000 3002 3012 7014
Solomon Islands 0 1175 1967 3142
South Korea 502 0 520 1022
Taiwan 5745 19003 21882 46630
Tanzania 0 0 260 260
Thailand 7442 10085 16045 33572
United Kingdom 0 0 253 253
Vietnam 15791 29388 34331 79510
CONTAINER TOTAL 110123 154287 180234 444644

 

………………………………

Table 2: ABS data showing Australia’s bulk wheat exports, including revised December 2017 figures.

Destination Nov Dec Jan Total tonnes
Bahrain 0 0 27500 27500
Bangladesh 0 51977 0 51977
China 86100 76078 0 162178
Fiji 0 13510 0 13510
India 0 33000 0 33000
Indonesia 30000 299551 217690 547241
Iraq 0 0 52500 52500
Japan 66503 80547 161893 308943
Kenya 0 43641 0 43641
Kuwait 91417 33000 45370 169787
Malaysia 0 47300 90500 137800
New Zealand 32164 23178 45939 101281
Nigeria 40000 44000 0 84000
Papua New Guinea 22000 17600 22000 61600
Philippines 0 50269 71456 121725
Singapore 0 26290 9920 36210
South Korea 34008 132300 120235 286543
Sri Lanka 0 20584 0 20584
Thailand 0 115088 0 115088
United Arab Emirates 35987 0 34300 70287
Viet Nam 636 86764 60010 147410
Yemen 55324 54233 30250 139807
BULK TOTAL 494139 1248910 989563 2732612

 

 

HAVE YOUR SAY

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Your comment will not appear until it has been moderated.
Contributions that contravene our Comments Policy will not be published.

Comments

Get Grain Central's news headlines emailed to you -
FREE!