China has stopped buying Australian malting barley as a world wide shortage has sent prices soaring, and further sales are unlikely until the next harvest later this year. Australia's biggest barley exporter, South Australian-based ABB Grain Ltd, said this week that Chinese buyers were refusing to buy at current world prices.
East coast exporter GrainCorp Ltd had the same experience, Ole Houe, manager of coarse grains, said on Friday. Malting barley prices in China have risen more than $100 a tonne to over $300 a tonne this year, causing Chinese brewers to substitute other grains in brewing beer. "At that level they say it's not economical for us to produce," Houe said. "They use all sorts of substitutes, such as rice, they malt wheat, they make do with a lot of stuff."
This had been triggered by small barley crops in drought-hit Australia, as well as in Europe. Australia would have 100,000 tonnes or less malt barley left to sell from the old crop, even if China was buying, Houe said.