The Indian sesame seed markets stand at the cusp of the new crop harvest.
The planting numbers in the 4 major states – Gujarat, Rajasthan, UP and MP totaled 11.31 lac hectares /1.13 Million Hectares in 2022 compared to 10.94 lacs / 1.09 Million Hectares in 2021. This is a small drop from last year. The weather has been suitable in most of the planting areas except for some pockets of Gujarat as well as MP that received excess rain over the last 2 weeks. There is still a forecast for rain for the rest of the month and this would be of significant importance on eventual quality and quantity output for the season. Possibly this is a fallout of the La Nina effect which led India into a successful monsoon this year as well.
The mood has been quite steady to bullish as our local consumption keeps increasing and hence any significant aberrations would cause India to become a buyer for the sesame as a raw material very quickly. International prices are not cheap for us to import but we have seen often that India disconnects itself from international markets rather frequently if the local consumption is healthy.
Demand at this point in time is slow since a large part of our buyers seem to be waiting for the new crop arrivals and wishing for prices to drop a bit from the current levels. With changes in weather the Indian sellers are not aggressive in pushing product either.
As an indication, we can quote as follows on FOB basis –
Natural Whitish 99/1/1 – USD. 1595.00 pmt
Natural Whitish Sortex, 99.95 % purity – USD. 1715.00 pmt
Natural Jet Black Sortex, 99.95 % purity – USD. 1980.00 pmt
Natural Black Sortex, 99.95% purity – USD. 1810.00 pmt
Hulled Sesame, Premium Grade, 99.98 % purity – USD. 2100.00 pmt
Hulled Sesame, 99.95 % purity – USD. 2070.00 pmt