Wheat shipments postponed to China, including Australian origin

Some deliveries of Australian wheat bound for China are being postponed, in addition to US wheat cancellations reported recently and talk of deferred shipments for French and Canadian wheat origins, trade sources told Agricensus Thursday.

Talk of possible delays or even cancellations of Australian-origin wheat appeared in the market on Tuesday, with some of the trade sources saying the trigger might be some companies starting to offer wheat at below market prices.

But according to industry sources Agricensus spoke with, it is more a case of delaying shipments into China rather than cancelling them, and this process started already some time ago, with a few sources mentioning January as the time when delays began.
“I got some confirmation now that some cargoes are getting rolled but I have not yet heard of them being cancelled,” a local trader said. “I think it has been happening for a while, but there has been some more recently. They trying to roll/defer as much as they can because of the slow domestic market,” they continued.

“No cancellations, just request for later shipment; this has been going on for a while,” a second trader said, while a third noted that exports to China were very slow.

No major effect has been seen in the market following the talk of delays and cancellations, with trade sources saying that for now they only see a lesser interest from Chinese buyers for new purchases.

The talk appeared after 504,000 tonnes of US SRW wheat cargoes were cancelled to China, but trade sources said that they had been expecting this to happen.

There was also talk of deferred French wheat cargo shipments, which is also not new as this first began back in November 2023, when it was suggested that exporters had been asked to postpone volumes scheduled for December loading until January or February.

Customs data showed that in December French wheat exports to China amounted to 690,915 tonnes, and in January to 609,884 tonnes, while in the past few years, January figures were significantly lower.

There has also been market talk of deferred deliveries for Canadian origin, reportedly in February, but at the same time, some sources said China had continued to take volumes from Canada after this.

China is among the biggest wheat importers in the world, with 11 million tonnes of imports expected in 2023/24, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), while from July to January, 6.24 million tonnes had already been imported, the bulk of which came from Australia.