Bread and cookie makers in India, the second-biggest wheat producer, may stop buying from Australia and Ukraine as global prices surged to a 23-month high after a heat wave slashed the harvest in Russia.
Flour mills, which planned to import 300,000 tonnes in the year ending March 31, will source part of their requirement from the local market, M.K. Dattaraj, former president of the Roller Flour Millers Federation of India, said in an interview.
Millers in southern states that rely on supplies from producing states in central and northern regions bought about 50,000 tonnes of Australian prime wheat in the three months ended June 30 through ports in Tuticorin and Kochi as the grain was US$20 cheaper than the local equivalent, Dattaraj said. The same wheat is US$50 more expensive now, making it unprofitable for Indian processors, he said.
“International prices have gone up so much, now there is no parity at all,” Dattaraj said yesterday. “It’s not possible at all to import now.”
Wheat has advanced 34 percent this year as a heat wave in Russia, dry weather in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the EU and flooding in Canada hurt crops. Russia banned grain exports starting on Sunday to the end of this year amid the most severe drought in at least 50 years.
Increased purchases by flour mills in the local market may boost domestic prices. Wheat for delivery this month has fallen 5 percent from a six-month peak on June 12 on the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange. India in June said it will sell 5 million tonnes in the open market to cool prices.
“If demand comes suddenly, traders may raise the price,” said R.K. Garg, president of Roller Flour Millers Federation of India.
The price gain will be marginal as India has enough stocks, he said.
“Overall, there is enough wheat available with government and it has to be offloaded in market,” he said.
The marketing year for wheat in India runs from April to March. State-run warehouses held 33.58 million tonnes of wheat and 24.26 million tonnes of rice on July 1, according to the state-run Food Corp.
Mills in southern parts of India were importing as the price offered by the government was higher than import costs, Garg said.
The landed price of Black Sea-origin wheat was 1,280 rupees (US$27.79) per 100kg in the southern state of Tamil Nadu a month ago, compared with Food Corp of India’s price of 1,390 rupees, Dattaraj said.
December-delivery futures on the Chicago Board of Trade dropped 3.8 percent to US$7.2675 a bushel at 3:29pm in Singapore. Wheat to be delivered this month was little changed at 1,248.80 rupees per 100kg on the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange in Mumbai.
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