Durum imports into the EU, mainly Italy, remain very strong. Turkey and Russia remain the main suppliers at this stage. The size of the purchases has taken a few analyst by surprise. Prices have improved over the last couple of months but given the volume of imports one may have expected to have see slightly higher values, given the demand side of the equation.
Overnight French values out of Port La Nouvelle were a little higher. When taking the softer AUD into account the move in French values was roughly equivalent to about AUD$22 / tonne higher. This still makes Canadian values significantly higher than French values though. Delivered EU consumer Canadian durum is roughly US$46 higher than French durum at the C&F level. When comparing these two values to the current bid for Australian durum one does tend to come to the conclusion the trade may still have at least AUD$50 up their sleeve here.

Indian chickpea values were back around AUD$9.00 per tonne at the Delhi market yesterday. The softer AUD helped to buffer a fall of Rs106/q, one of the larger one day falls chickpeas have seen in a few weeks. Rainfall has picked up a little across some of the major chickpea production regions of India. It’s still dry in the NW but the southern and central chickpea regions are looking a little better for sowing now. The 7 day outlook for India is dry though, so it’s hard to see the market there falling apart on the back of these recent showers. Using a rough back of the envelope conversion, local bids for the new crop here do appear to be pretty close to reflecting current Indian values.

No rate rise from the RBA, AUD slips further, now knocking on the sub 63c door. The way things are shaping up you might think it’s a 50/50 bet up / down.