No data on the Algerian durum tender this morning. Possibly this afternoon. Algeria issued a 50kt tender for durum on Monday. Typically Algeria buy in 50kt increments and the total purchase volume is well above 50kt, often in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes. Back in October they picked up between 400kt and 500kt on a 50kt tender. Algeria do not make public their total purchase details, price nor volume. The results are generally trade speculation, but assumed correct.
Tunisia was the last big durum tender back on the 12th of December when they picked up 4 boats at roughly US$320 CiF.
With Turkey returning to being a net importer of durum after being a net exporter last year, the main competition into the Algerian tender will come from France, Canada, Australia and possibly Kazakhstan, but most likely Canada. Canadian quality is lower than average this year but they are still forecasting a robust export program. At last night’s values Canadian 1CWAD13 would probably work out at roughly US$5.00 under French durum values. Aussie durum at the trade bid to the grower here would be cheaper, but once costs like trade margin and insurance were included we would be pretty much bang on with either French or Canadian durum on a C&F Algeria basis.
The AUD is stronger this morning, countering some of the smaller moves higher in international wheat prices. It’s not helping the chickpea price either. Delhi chickpeas fell again overnight, shedding 13Rs/Q. Taking the move in the AUD into account this is a reduction in the day to day conversion to AUD/t of AUD$6.42/t. Add that to yesterdays conversion decline of AUD$14.71/t, and we have a net weekly decline in the conversion of AUD$21.13/t. With Delhi values now at 5531Rs/Q, that’s 119Rs/Q, or AUD$19.87/t, under the Minimum Support Price, it may start to make the odd exporter who’s long chickpea a little nervous. I remember learning about the last time they implemented a tariff while sitting at central station in Sydney on a Saturday afternoon. There wasn’t much of a warning and the implementation of the tariff basically decimated chickpea imports to Indian for a couple of years.