World: Malting barley market starting to forge its independent price direction - analysts

The malting barley market is starting to forge an independent market price direction based on a tightening supply situation for quality malting barley, RMI Analytics said in their early August report.

French prices are leading the path higher, with Canada up as well. Australia is unchanged from the previous report in late July but over the past week prices are up on the Chinese tariff news. The Argentina price is indicated slightly lower but in a very quiet market.

The drop in barley supply is now nearly 14 mln tonnes below crop 2022 levels, and as analysts warned before, any further disruption to supply would be bullish to prices, which is now occurring.

The malting premium also continues to expand, nearly USD140/tonne in France, and reflects the mounting concern about availability for quality two-row malting barley globally. The southern hemisphere crops look good and are increasingly important to offset the northern hemisphere challenges identified, the analysts said.

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