Tunisia booked 100kt of milling wheat, 100kt of durum wheat and 50kt of feed barley last night. The durum was made up of four parcels done at CFR Tunisia and averaging a price of just under US$532.
On the back of an envelope, we can use this number to help us work out an approximate, comparable price for durum here in NNSW and the LPP. Using current ocean and road rate estimates, it comes out between AUD$600 and AUD$620 ex farm LPP equivalent. Other deductions would include trade margin and sundry costs.  It does tend to indicate that there could possibly be a little fat in current local cash bids.
The major issue facing local merchants and farmers in NNSW isn’t really price at present, but more so quality. Weeks of storms, flooding and mild conditions at grain fill have threatened to reduce the quality of the NNSW durum crop. With harvesters attempting to make progress prior to another change in weather on Sunday, it may be mid-December before quality, thus the appropriate price premium is known.
Comparing the Tunisian durum tender value to Canadian values in a similar fashion we can determine that Canadian values, like Australian bids, are also lower than expected compared to this tender result. Values out of the SE of France are the most comparable to the values seen in the tender.
Tunisia also picked up 50kt of feed barley, 25kt at US$343.50 and 25kt at US$349.34 CnF, for the sake of the exercise in comparing it to local values we’ll call it US$345. This would make it roughly comparable to AUD$340ish XF LPP equivalent, indicating local new crop bids are pretty much on the money.
The main news remains the Ukraine grain corridor negotiations. Talks commenced overnight but there isn’t a lot of info on the outcome yet. There was speculation Russia would request a number of conditions which mainly focused on Ukraine grain going to 3rd world countries.