Indian flour millers and global trading companies have sewn up deals to import 500,000 tonnes of premium Australian wheat since March, trade sources said, the biggest such purchases in more than a decade despite surplus stocks at home.
Concerns that untimely rains in February and March would cut wheat output, especially of high-protein varieties used to make pizzas and pasta, first drove millers in India’s southern ports to place the orders.
The traders and millers could import a further 500,000 tonnes from France and Russia, where harvests are around the corner. The deals could push up benchmark prices that have already jumped on recent concerns about crop quality in the United States.
Almost half of the quantity contracted so far – bought at $255-275 a tonne – has reached India and the rest is scheduled for July delivery, said sources. At about $185-190 a tonne on a free-on-board basis, French and Russian wheat is attractive for India, another source said. High-protein wheat in India costs more than $300 a tonne.