India sold some 18,000 tonnes of soymeal to South Korea for November shipment, while Australian exporters are hoping to win a tender issued by Iraq this week to purchase 100,000 tonnes of wheat. India is also actively selling corn, striking deals with feed millers in Malaysia and Vietnam at around $245 and $250 a tonne, including cost and freight (C&F), for shipment in November and December, traders said.
"There were more deals of Indian soymeal done in the past 5 to 10 days as there is strong demand and prices are competitive," said one Singapore-based feed grains trader "Indian corn is also in demand, Malaysia and Vietnam are active in the market."
Traders said South Korea bought 55,000 tonnes of South American meal last week at $429 a tonne C&F, while the deal for Indian meal was signed at $418 a tonne. India's soymeal sales are likely to double to around 300,000 tonnes in September from a month ago as buyers snap up cargoes from the South Asian nation, offering competition to suppliers of US and South American meal.
Feed mills in Vietnam and Thailand are in talks to book soymeal cargoes for October/November shipment and most business is likely to go to India on competitive prices being offered by bean processors from the country, traders at a regional grains conference said last week. In Australia, where exporters are aggressively marketing wheat in absence of Black Sea cargoes, eyes are on an Iraqi wheat tender.
Iraq's Grain Board issued a new tender on Monday to buy at least 100,000 tonnes of wheat from any origin. Bids to supply the wheat were due by September 26, and have to remain valid until October 3. "I think you will find that US wheat will be quite aggressive into Iraq but it just depends on logistics there, their ports are full to capacity so it will just depend on whose got the capacity," said Tom Puddy, head of wheat marketing at Western Australian-based CBH Group, one of Australia's top grain exporters.
"Europe is going to be pretty tight so it will be either US or Aussie wheat, that would be my prediction." Australia sold 15,000 tonnes of wheat to Southeast Asia this week but prices are rising on lower supplies of high-protein grains at the end of the season, traders said.
Australian prime wheat was quoted around $365-$370 a tonne, C&F to Asia, up from $360 last week, while Australia prime hard wheat is being offered around $420 a tonne compared with $415 a tonne a week ago. US soft white wheat was quoted at $355 a tonne and dark northern spring wheat at $425 a tonne.
"Australian wheat is getting expensive and the hard wheat is difficult to find as it is end of the season," said another Singapore trader. "US wheat is now competitive, soft white wheat is quite profitable, so there should be deals taking place."
Comments
Comments are closed.