Canada’s Husky Energy abandons wheat feedstock as prices soar
In Canada, Husky Energy will abandon wheat as an ethanol feedstock, and is offering $6 per bushel for spring corn deliveries, following the run-up in wheat prices. The rapid increase in wheat prices has prompted farmers to withhold wheat from the market in the hope of achieving higher prices at a later date. Husky said its Minnedosa plant in Manitoba has already switched to a 75 percent corn blend with 25 percent wheat.
At the Chicago Board of Trade, wheat reached an all-time high of $12 per bushel earlier this month, surging more than 25 percent after Kazakhstan announced it would impose export tariffs to reduce exports after consumer prices for wheat rose more than 20 percent in 2007. Wheat reserves are expected to fall to 109 million bushels, the lowest figures since the 1970s. Spring wheat rose to more than $24 per bushel.
A professor at the University of Idaho recently testified before the state Agriculture Affairs committees in the state House and Senate that corn ethanol production is causing economic “dislocation”. Professor Garth Taylor also identified Brazilian, Argentine and Australian droughts as well as increased Third World demand for the run-up in prices. He also said that the weak dollar, US drought risk, low interest rates and the unsigned Farm Bill have impacted prices.
Providing more background to the reserve stock shortages, the International Food Policy Research Institute recently released a report saying that the world is eating more food than it produces, and that biofuel production runs the risk of creating social unrest. The report projected a 66 percent increase in the price of corn and a 50 percent increase in oilseed prices by 2020, attributed to biofuel production. The report also said that global cereal stocks have fallen to their lowest levels in more than 15 years.
The International Grains Council said that it projected an increase in global wheat stocks in 2008-09 due to increased planting. Poor harvests in Australia, Ukraine and Canada resulted in significant shortfalls in production in the past year.
