SINGAPORE- Argentine wheat shipments to Asia are poised to climb to a record high over the next two months as a drought curbs Australian production and Black Sea inventories tighten, two trade sources said.
Indonesia, Asia’s biggest importer, along with Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines are expected to receive close to 1.2 million tons of wheat from the South American country, said the traders, who have access to shipping data.
“This year’s volumes of wheat coming to Asia from Argentina are substantially higher than in 2019, which itself was a record year for Argentinean supplies,” said one trader who is based in Singapore and supplies wheat to flour millers across the region.
“Argentina has a big crop to sell this year.”
Argentina’s Buenos Aires grains exchange bumped up its wheat harvest forecast for the 2019/20 season to a bumper 18.8 million tons from an earlier estimate of 18.5 million tons.
That leaves the country with a surplus of around 12 million tons for export in 2019/20, trade sources said.
“More than half of 1.2 million tons (for February and March) is heading to just Indonesia,” the trader said. — Reuters
