Australia's CBH makes wheat stocks public due to coronavirus

Singapore — Australia's CBH Group Wednesday has decided to make its wheat and barley stock numbers publicly available in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The move is to address concerns in the Australian domestic industry over availability of grain while the coronavirus pandemic continues.

"During this unprecedented time CBH wants to make grain stocks transparent at a high level, given public, industry and government concerns," it said in a report.

The figures represent stock owned by both growers and marketers in the CBH system and does not distinguish between committed and uncommitted stock, it said.

As of March 27, 3 million mt of wheat was on hand. Hard wheat stocks totaled 945,438 mt, Australian Premium White (APW) wheat 671,967 mt, and Australian Standard White (ASW) wheat 215,728 mt. There was also 1.192 million mt of other wheat in stock.

Given the tightness in ASW wheat supply, S&P Global Platts narrowed the price spread between the APW and ASW assessment from $1/mt to $0.50/mt Tuesday.

CBH said it will report wheat stocks on the first day of every month until October 1, when the new season commences.

Prices are likely to remain supported on tighter supply.

The pace of Australian wheat exports so far this season (October 2019-September 2020) has been brisk. It exported more than 3 million mt between October and January, with an additional 2.9 million mt on the shipping line-up up to September, according to shipping data.

Australia is forecast to export a total of 8 million mt of wheat in 2019-20, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

"If the export pace continues at this pace, we will likely run out of stock in two months' time," a trader in Australia said.

A number of other traders agreed.

"It will make it difficult to accumulate a large volume for bulk cargo, but we can still handle containers," one trader said.

Platts APW assessment has risen by $16.50/mt since March 19 to $265/mt FOB Kwinana Wednesday.