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Asia grain: India meal up, no problems from strike

SINGAPORE: Indian soyameal prices are set to climb further after a recent surge because of declining supply, although no shipping disruption is likely from an ongoing port strike, traders said on Friday.

"Customers in Asia are quite relaxed (about the dock strikes). We're more worried about price situation," said a trader. "The big pressure is over that Indians had to sell. Their prices are coming closer to the market prices."

Traders said prices for Indian soyameal had jumped by some $10 over the past 10 days to around $185 per tonne, C&F Southeast Asian port. The next cheapest, Argentine low-protein soya meal from the old crop, stood at around $195.

Local Indian soyabean prices had risen to about 8,500 rupees a tonne, compared with around 7,500 in November, mainly because the harvest season was coming to an end, they said.

While many Asian buyers were covered for January shipments, some positions were open for February and only about half of March were done, traders said. The new crop from South America is not expected in the region until May or June.

"Coverage is quite good for January. A little bit needs to be done for February still. I'd say March is half covered," the first trader said. "Shipment has taken place in big quantities -- December was improving, January looks good."

The dock strike crippling cargo movement at 11 major ports in India had so far caused not disruptions for shipping soyameal because small ports were working as usual, traders added.

Traders said there were no signs that the Indian government had started to crush part of 400,000-450,000 tonnes soyabeans it said it would procure to support farmers. It also remained uncertain if it would sell the meal or oil in the market.

"I don't think they've crushed even a kilo," said a second trader. "Beans are in the hands of government agencies which are actually inexperienced in soyabean and soyabean crushing. They don't know exactly what to do."

Indian crushers were struggling with negative margins again, traders said, because domestic edible prices had dropped back to levels seen before an increase in import duties late last month.

Price cuts by Malaysia had more than offset a rise in Indian import duties on refined edible oils to 27.5 percent from 16.5 percent, aimed at curbing massive inflows of cheap edible oils, such as palm oil, they said.

"Malaysia has a record (palm oil) production. They have nowhere else to go. Malaysians would just have to lower their prices," the trader said. "Whatever the Indians do, unless they make quotas, they're not going to stop imports."-reuters