According to experts, in July the spread between black sea wheat with protein 11.5% and Australian APW wheat amounted to about $60 per tonne, with delivery in Indonesia. However, by early November the spread has been shrinking, along with possible winter shortages in transportation can lead to reduced supplies of black sea wheat in Asia. "If at the beginning of the season experts predicted the yield reduction in Australia because of the drought up to 23-24 million tons (-30%), then in early December, analysts at the Australian Bureau of agricultural Economics and natural resources (ABARES) lowered the forecast to 20.3 million tons due to stormy rains during the harvesting campaign", - said J. Kozicki.

He noted that the Indian direction for black sea wheat towards the end of the first half of the season ended in November when the was put an import duty on wheat at the rate of 20%.

The expert said that the decline in exports of feed wheat to Thailand, Korea and India were offset by deliveries of feed and milling wheat to Indonesia, which is struggling with high corn prices in the domestic market, and Bangladesh, which intends this season to increase the import of wheat from 5.8 million to 6.5 million tons in order to build inventory after the floods that destroyed part of the harvest. However, the complex conditions of participation in public procurement Bangladesh, as well as the slow unloading in ports restrain the desire of operators to sell in that direction.

In the first half of the season Asia remains the leading direction of sales of Ukrainian wheat, but its share in total exports was less than 60% vs. about 65% in the past year. "It is clear that the exit of Russia on the Asian market was not the last reason for this trend" concluded J. Kozicki.

Photo: prognosis-biotech.com