RUMOURS are circulating the grains industry that Joe White Maltings will mothball its WA plant this year to concentrate on its Eastern States' operations.
And the Viterra-backed company has done nothing to extinguish the rumours and claimed the lack of available tonnage produced in WA this season would affect its operation.
"Viterra does not respond to rumours but our operations are affected by the availability and cost of inputs which includes malt barley," a Viterra spokesperson said.
Malt barley bids from some buyers in WA slipped by up to $70/t over the last couple of weeks which bought prices back to export parity.
The value change occurred even though the state of the WA harvest had confirmed a low percentage of malt barley would be available to maltsters this year.
Traders like AWB and Emerald continued to bid at about $335/t (AWB) and $320/t (Emerald).
One industry commentator said that if the Joe White rumour was true, prices from these traders would come quickly back to export parity.
He also advised barley prices couldn't fall much further than the current levels (about $300/t) and there was a fair chance that export parity would rise as time continued, particularly if the quality of east coast crops were affected by their wet harvest.
MarketAg director Richard Vincent said the malt barley market peaked around $380/t FIS at the start of November.
"At this point in time the fear for the WA barley crop was one of well below average quality from high screenings," he said.
"As it turned out a bit more malt was produced than first thought which may end up meeting local end user demand in WA."
Prices have eased around $60/t since then and traders and growers alike have been watching the South Australian malt prices to gauge where WA prices might trade.
"South Australian prices were acting as a benchmark for export parity," Mr Vincent said.
"WA prices demanded a premium to South Australia with uncertainty of the WA crop not being big enough to satisfy Joe White Maltings and other maltsters."
He also said growers who were still holding malt needed to talk to their local consultant about malt strike rates in WA, the size of the WA crop, price levels out of South Australia, weather problems on the east coast and current and future export values.
"Growers will also need to be aware of how Malt 2 prices fare relative to feed values," he said.
Barley growers were encouraged to keep a close eye on prices because most merchants were still putting down relatively good money for malting varieties.
All farmers can do is watch the prices to determine what might happen.
