Australia sees large chickpea exports in Oct-Dec

A bumper chickpea crop is filling up capacity at Australia's Queensland and New South Wales grain terminals at the start of the 2024-25 shipping year.

GrainCorp shipping stem shows 19 slots loading approximately 270,000t of chickpeas in October-December from its Mackay and Gladstone export terminals. Only 230,000t of wheat is shown for loading in the same period from southern ports at Geelong and Portland.

GrainCorp said in June it would only accept vessel nominations of chickpea shipments for elevation capacity at Mackay and Gladstone for October–December in anticipation of higher demand.

The export programme in northern New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland is geared towards chickpeas for the start of the marketing year, some market participants said.

Growers are not in a hurry to sell existing wheat because of the low current domestic prices — some near costs of production — and the high prices for chickpeas. Chickpeas prices were around A$1,050 compared with APW at approximately A$340 for delivery to Brisbane.

But the large chickpea volumes could strain the local logistics and northern east coast export terminals, given the record crop and tight export window. This is especially so with India's suspension on tariffs on Desi chickpeas set to expire on 31 March 2025.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences forecasts chickpea production to reach 650,000t in NSW and 640,000t in Queensland in the 2024-25 (July–June) fiscal year. The NSW wheat crop is forecast to reach 11mn t and Queensland wheat crop is estimated at 2.1mn t in 2024-25.

Competition for freight in northern NSW and Queensland, which is mainly by road, will drive resources to where they are most valuable, a market participant said. With margins on chickpeas exceeding wheat, that could limit capacity for wheat during harvest.

In the near record harvest of 2021-22, Queensland exported 360,000t of grain in containers and 2.9mn t of grain in bulk, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. Chickpeas accounted for 270,000t of the bulk shipments.

By Edward Dunlop