We have been facing continuous bouts of rain in different parts of India until last week and unfortunately some of these were in the sesame growing areas as well.
While there is already a strong debate on the winter crop numbers that will see in the coming days, until the rains actually stop we will not be able to correctly predict the quantity or quality of the eventual harvest. The quantity will surely be significantly lower than what we had last season and from what is available we would have quality issues as well. Hence, based on experience, we feel that there could possibly be a shortage of good quality whitish seed looking at our domestic requirements as well as export demand.
Prices of natural and hulled seed have been fairly range bound so far as we had a large summer crop and the bountiful rains also guarantee that we will have a fairly large summer crop planting for 2022. This sentiment is keeping a lid on prices for now. Demand for local consumption as well as export is slow for now.
While freight rates to China & Far East have not moved up as much in dollar terms as they have to the western part of the world like EU and USA they still are impacting prices on the end product. Just for an idea the current freight for the 20 foot container to the far East markets is about 800 to 1,000 dollars, while for EU or Russia it is in the range of 5500 to 6,000 dollars. For USA the rates are in excess of 8 to 10,000 dollars. Getting containers and smooth transshipment or another story all together so there is absolutely no guarantee of timely shipments or fixed schedule based voyages either.
On the international demand / import side, we have news of adequate stocks in China hence there is no urgency to cover goods. Japan as usual is well covered for calendar 2021 but Turkey, EU and USA seem to be a mixed story.
On the international supply / export side we have news of a much lower crop in Ethiopia due to domestic political situation. Nigeria is also reporting lower numbers by at least 50 – 65,000 mt as farmers have switched to rice, peanuts etc. Sudan, Burkina Faso and other west African countries do not have any issues for now. Logistics will be a very important part of getting cargo out from some of these countries.
All these situations continue to provide a lot of excitement and uncertainty to the trade.
Price levels on FOB basis for 15 October / 15 November shipment are as follows –
Natural 99/1/1 – USD. 1465.00 pmt
Natural Sortex – USD. 1565.00 pmt
Jet Black sortex – USD. 2025.00 pmt
Hulled Sesame, 99.95 % – USD. 1870.00 pmt