Europe: Scandinavian malting barley market situation

After quiet New Year holidays in Europe and Russia market came back slowly around mid January and apart from general buying interest in West- and Central Europe the Russians decided to cover some of their needs for the spring months and the first July material, according to H. Abildstrom & Co ApS February 15.

"Record after record is being hammered down in the historical data files. January: a) wettest since 1873 (when Denmark began measuring). b) temperatures average 5 deg C or 0.1 deg above the previous record. Upto now the only month ever beating two records. We ( DK and South Sweden and parts of Finland) had winter in week 4, then mild again, then winterish week 6. Forecast: 7 days above zero in south Sweden and DK. Further north we are talking about (the usual) minus 25-30 deg c. with single days minus 12-15 only.

The winter crops have survived so far and apart from some new lakes on flooded fields we see lots of green and well advanced barley and wheat. In fact so well advanced that a longer period of minus f. inst 15 deg would unavoidably cause some winter kill unless snow cover turns up first."

Maltsters have accepted still more different qualities – some with high pro and good germination, some with low pro and limited germination, some odd varieties with fine germination, some crop 2005 ex Finnish and Danish intervention stores. Thus jumping away and supplying malt to breweries. As mentioned before malting barley is malt being malted.

If we take into consideration that we are getting closer to sowing with Southern UK 50% done on light soils, France with some wet stops also fairly advanced and Scandinavia perhaps only 4-5 weeks away things could begin to look brighter – or at least show the first glimpse at the end of the tunnel. This together with the various accepted emergency-solutions could create a more relaxed scenario. Obviously though even after sowing the weather will play the major role and also decide when French is ready in the French bay. Consequently envisage sharp swings for the balance of crop 2006 and parity development on new.

Guesses on amount of farmer owned spring barley still unsold in Denmark and England are manifold but over here we have reasons to believe under 75.000 ts. Some interest has shown up during January for crop 2008 and Danish FOT and EU FOB has been traded at levels slightly under or same as crop 2007 for October. The bulk of business, however, was on 2007.


Prices

Basis 3000 ts, max 14.5% moisture, FOB. 1st half March, 2007:

Crop 2006 Dan/Swed optional spring malting barley max 12% protein, nominal 228 €/mt

Crop 2007, basis 1st half October, 2007, Dan/Swed optional spring malting barley max 11.5% protein nominal 176 €/mt

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