Australia: Exporters are switching to shipping barley in containers
Freight rates for containerised barley exports from Australia to China were presently between $25 and $28 per tonne, compared with $50 per tonne for bulk exports, traders said. Shipments now depended on the availability of container space, Ole Houe, manager of coarse grains for eastern Australian trading and handling group GrainCorp Ltd said.
Australia is struggling to supply malting barley to the main market of China because of last year's small crop, but whatever supplies are available are likely to be shipped in containers.
Exports of French malting barley to China were also taking place in containers, according to Houe. "The reason we can all keep going is that there's an excess capacity of empty containers from Europe and Australia," he said.
Bulk barley shipments from Australia also take place, and wheat is still shipped mainly in bulk. But container freight rates had become competitive with bulk rates in the past couple of years, another grains trader said.
Containerised grain exports were limited by handling capability at the receiving end, but Chinese malsters were adept at handling the container trade, Australian traders said. Containers involved extra costs for packing and handling, but were still competitive with present bulk rates, they said.
Meanwhile, continued dry weather in Australia's winter crop planting season suggests many growers may switch to barley in 2005/06 from earlier-planted crops, including wheat, GrainCorp's Houe said.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) in early March forecast that Australia's 2005/06 barley crop would rise to 7.3 million tonnes from 6.5 million tonnes.
Australia is the world's top barley exporter.
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