Ukraine: With good export demand for barley, the spread between wheat and barley prices will remain the same next season, Black See Grain said on March 28. “Exporters' activity is rather brisk, as they are afraid of the soon exhausting of domestic barley stocks. Nevertheless, we observe some decline in the activity,” Black See Grain added. In total, Ukraine has exported 3.95MMT of feed barley since the season’s beginning (July 2004 – March 20, 2005). This is the record high barley export.

“We believe that barley exports will not exceed 250KMT in April / May for a few reasons: decreasing domestic stocks; intention of the EuroCommission to start on March 31 the subsidizing of 0.5MMT of barley exports from countries without the sea outlet and Germany. We believe that throwing such a volume to the market will substantially limit exports from the Black Sea region. According to our estimates, barley exports from Ukraine will total 4.3MMT in the 2004/05 season.”

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .