South African wheat imports are set to slow or even come to a halt from early April 2003 until at least early August 2003 following the acquisition by the country’s millers of between 500 000 to 600 000 tons of almost all European wheat for shipment from October 2002 to March 2003.
South Africa’s three main millers of wheat are Sasko, Premier and Tiger while the traders doing importing most of the European wheat have been local trader Seaboard and US commodity giant Cargill.
“Most of the millers are covered for wheat imports until April and their needs are met until about July. For the moment millers have enough stocks. Depending on the rand and the international price of wheat there may be more wheat imports in the current marketing season,” a procurement officer for a major milling company said.
“South Africa is most likely to start importing again from August or September 2003, once the new U.S. wheat crop comes in. There is the possibility of small cargoes of Argentinean wheat imports in March or April 2003,” he added.
A recent I-Net Bridge survey shows the market consensus for the total wheat imports for the 2002/03 wheat market year, which runs from October 1, 2002 to
September 30, 2003, to be about 575 000 tons.
The wheat imported from October 2002 until March 2003 is being sourced from
Germany, France, the U.K., Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Poland and a small consignment
of 25 000 tons from the US – I-Net Bridge