January 29, 2007

Australia's AWB holds estimated returns on wheat exports
 

Australian wheat exporter AWB Ltd. Monday held steady its estimate of gross returns from pooled export sales of new crop wheat.

As a result, benchmark Australian Premium White grade of 10.5 percent protein is still estimated to return a gross A$242.00/tonne (about US$187/tonne), free-on-board, unchanged from a review Dec 11.

Other new crop grades were also left unchanged, with Australian Prime Hard grade of 13 percent protein estimated at A$257.50/tonne, Australian Premium Durum grade of 13 percent protein at A$261.00/tonne and Feed grade at A$205.00/tonne.

David Johnston, acting general manager of AWB's collective export sales pool, said cash and US futures markets softened a little in the past two weeks, but the pool estimate was left unchanged, helped by a successful currency hedging programme. The Australian currency has weakened against the US dollar over the past week.

AWB now has more than 3.0 million tonnes of wheat delivered into the 2006-07 export pool, a pleasing outcome considering the impact of drought on production, he said in a statement.

Johnston urged growers and traders to finalise deliveries into the pool as soon as possible to help provide certainty about international market allocations and to help finalise the shipping programme.

With limited wheat available for export, AWB aims to satisfy its long-term international customers, he said.

AWB pools returns from its export wheat sales and deducts costs before paying producers.