1. Trading offer & request

At this moment there is one OFFER for 1500 tons of malt on the trading portal www.e-malt.com

• Offer for 1-1500 mtons of malt, 6RW Esterel, crop 2003, bulk, delivery 1/11/2003 - 31/3/2004, at EUR 260.00/mton, FOB Antwerp. (to see and make a bid to the malt offer, please click here to view code MF1010P1534)
  
  

 Top Industry News 

More news is available on site www.e-malt.com  

• The German brewer and soft drink producer Brau und Brunnen AG is negotiating with four bidders for the sale of the 55% currently owned by shareholder the HVB Group ...more info



• Interbrew, through its subsidiary Beck's North America, announced on October 10 the appointment of Thomas Cardella to President and Chief Executive Officer of its Beck's North America operation ...more info



• Millions of Americans following a low carbohydrate lifestyle will soon be able to enjoy an imported Belgian beer that has the lowest carb count of any other beer on the market ...more info



• US company, Constellation Brands Inc., a distributor of Corona beer, said on October 14 maintained its earnings forecast for the third quarter and the full year ...more info



• Brazil's AmBev, the world's fifth-biggest brewer, faces a tough time breaking into the Peruvian beer market, which is almost entirely controlled by Union de Cervecerias Peruanas Backus & Johnston ...more info



• The brewing force, Heineken, will invest EUR 300 million (US$353.8 million) to move to a location in Seville, southern Spain ...more info



• Russian brewing company Tinkoff has announced recently that it is to open a new brewery in Pushkino, near St. Petersburg together with leading German brewer Krones AG ...more info



• Scottish & Newcastle announced on October 10 that Bob Ivell, Chairman and Managing Director of S&N Retail intends to resign from the Board of Scottish & Newcastle plc ...more info




2. Brewery News

The Danish brewing giant, Carlsberg Breweries A/S, announced on October 14 that it had increased its shareholding in Carlsberg Okocim S.A. in Poland to 79 % through the acquisition of a further 4 % of the share capital. The shares have been acquired from the German brewery Bitburger at a price of DKK 41 million, the company said. The acquisition is part of Carlsberg Breweries' strategy to increase its shareholding in important breweries. Poland is the 10th largest beer market in the world. In 2002, the total consumption was 27 million hl beer which is equivalent to a yearly per capita consumption of 69 litres. Over the past five years, the annual consumption has increased by about 7 %. Carlsberg Okocim has a market share of 14 % and Carlsberg is the strongest growing premium brand.

The leading Nigeria’s brewery, Nigerian Breweries Plc, a subsidiary of Dutch brewer Heineken NV, said on October 14 that a new $311 million brewery in the southeastern city of Enugu will be completely operational on October 24, Reuters reported. The Ama Brewery began partial operations in March, producing at 1.5 million hectolitres per year. This will double to 3 million hectolitres from October, bringing total capacity at Nigeria's No. 1 brewer to 10 million hectolitres and helping it stay ahead of its nearest competitor, Guinness Nigeria. Heineken owns 54 % of Nigerian Breweries, which is the most highly capitalised company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Nigerian Breweries spokesman Larry Agose told journalists the completion of the plant will round off a five-year 70 billion naira ($545 million) investment plan. As well as building the new plant, the plan involved modernising plants in five cities including the commercial capital Lagos. "These projects were designed to guarantee us the volumes needed to meet the challenges posed by the demand growth in the brewed products market," said Agose. Nigerian Breweries made a net profit of 9.2 billion naira ($72 million) last year, a 103 % rise from 2001. Highlighting the growing demand for alcoholic beverages in Nigeria, Guinness said last week its full-year profits to June 30 had increased by 60 % to 6.6 billion naira ($52 million).

China's largest beer maker, Tsingtao Brewery Co., announced on October 13 that it has increased its production by 12% in January–September this year versus January-September 2002. The brewer produced around 2.68 million metric tons of beer in the nine months ended September 30, against 2.40 million tons of beer produced in the same period in 2002, said the company’s official. "Sales volume (for the period) shouldn't be far off production volume," he said. The company earlier reported its sales volume rose 8% to 1.65 million tons in the first half of the year, as the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) affected demand. "It looks as though we won't be able to achieve our original production target of 3.6 million tons this year," the official said. "The new target is 3.3 million tons." The company is expected to announce its third-quarter results by the end of the month.

Total beer consumption in Central and South America remained almost static in 2002, dipping only slightly compared with the previous year, Canadean’s analysts reported. It was registerd 17% growth in Peru and 17% decline in Uruguay. Despite the political scene being more stable than it has been in decades, many countries continue to suffer economic fall-out following the relatively strong growth of the 1990s. In turn, this has affected beer consumption which has traditionally been closely correlated with economic growth. The beer market in this region is highly concentrated with 94% of consumption attributable to the leading seven countries. Furthermore, the two largest markets, namely Brazil and Mexico, enjoy a combined share of almost 70%. Compared with some of the other countries, consumption in Brazil and Mexico was relatively flat in 2002, increasing and declining by 1% and 2% respectively. As a result of lower pricing, consumption grew fastest in Peru. Colombia was the only other leading country to expand, rising by a very encouraging 7% after several years of decline. The market in Argentina was affected by the continued economic recession which also had negative implications for neighbouring Uruguay...more info

3. Malt News

EU export licence bookings continued in September. 200,000 tons were fixed again, the total stands at 1.2 million tonnes versus 560,000 tonnes at the same time last year, or 60 % of last year’s total. (If the published figures are correct). The U.K. booked already 107 % of last year’s licences, the Netherlands 74%, Belgium and France 62 %. Belgium took 55 %, France 29 % of their bookings as long-term licences, valid for the current month plus eleven. One must, however, take into account that licences fixed in one EU country can be used everywhere else in the EU as well. These sizeable licence bookings are not representing the volume of shipments, and not the volume of sales, either. A number of EU countries have not booked any long-term licences, although they have certainly sales in the books for shipment in 2004.



(in tonnes)	2000 - 2001	2001 - 2002	2002 - 2003	July 1, 2003 - October 1, 2003
France	523,190	701,134	661,772	407,650
Germany	305,980	468,314	408,063	115,723
Belgium	277,584	296,368	287,850	180,145
U.K.	254,793	350,621	294,995	315,098
Finland	65,550	91,890	100,758	42,297
Denmark	52,326	96,812	94,791	21,500
Sweden	50,847	101,000	76,916	40,470
Netherlands	54,835	51,310	66,219	48,721
Ireland	26,003	35,145	31,140	11,900
Austria	4,850	8,840	8,620	4,120
Spain	3,000	2,400	5,640	10,000
Greece	1,800	1,744	1,306	200
Portugal	340	221	85	151
Italy	-	-	2	-
Total:	1,621,098	2,205,799	2,038,157	1,197,975




	Total Wheat malt, tonnes
Total 2000/2001	4,686
Total 2001/2002	12,805
Total 2002/2003	30,908
July 1/03 – October 1/03	2,384
	Total Roasted malt, tonnes
Total 2000/2001	23,967
Total 2001/2002	23,480
Total 2002/2003	23,603
July 1/03 – October 1/03	6,972



American food and agriculture giant Cargill plans to invest $50 million into a malting plant in Tula, Russia. The total investment of Cargill in Russia is to be $200 million, according to Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev. Gordeyev, who met in the White House on Monday with David Rogers, the head of Cargill's European division, Cargill International SA, was quoted October 14 as saying that the Minnesota-based company would invest the money in the construction of new plants and that the funds would begin arriving later this year. Cargill's Moscow office said late October that it was awaiting word from its home office in the United States before releasing a statement. The privately held conglomerate opened its Moscow office in 1991. It is involved in everything from trading grain and crude oil to processing meat, making steel, and financial services. Cargill expects to post a net profit of $1.3 billion in 2003 on revenues of some $60 billion. It reported a profit of $798 million in 2002. This week the conglomerate launched an international advertising campaign that employs the tag line, "Nourishing Ideas. Nourishing People," to encourage people to think of it more as a business partner than a provider of raw materials.

Imported malt in Russia is consistently seen as being superior to domestically produced grain, and Russian barley is often viewed as being of poor quality. That was the conclusion of Consulting agency Market Advice, which carried out an in-depth review of the Russian brewing industry this month, with an emphasis on the country’s malt market, Beverage Daily reported. Interestingly, the brands of beer, which have won the most recognition in the Russian market, are made using imported malt. It is of little surprise therefore that the price for foreign malt is on average 40 to 50 % higher than the cost of domestically-grown gain. This means that Russian brewers often purchase domestically-produced malt, or even build their own malt factories. These malt factories are often supported by domestic financial institutions. The Russian commercial bank Avangard for example has carried out a targeted programme that includes the construction of three malt processing facilities with total capacity of 300 thousand tons per annum...more info

4. Barley News

The German 2003 crop of malting barley is estimated to be at 1.9 million tones, 500 tousand tonnes above 2002 output, HGCA reported on October 13. German farmers planted more malting barley varieties this year. The higher spring barley area was partly encouraged by favourable market prices, but mainly in response to an unusually high percentage of winter kill (about 9 % of the winter barley area, 6 % of winter rapeseed and 4 % of winter wheat). The total spring barley crop is now estimated at 3.6 million tonnes tonnes (3 million tonnes last year). Of this, 1.9 million tonnes are estimated to be of malting barley quality, nearly 500,000 tonnes above last year’s output. Maltsters should have better supplies of malting barley this season, since a good malting barley crop has been harvested in Germany, HGCA said.

France exported about 377 thousand tonnes of feed barley by the end of September, according to the figures of SGS. Of this, 331 thousand tonnes were exported to third countries. France also exported about 315 thousand tonnes of malting barley, almost all to third countries.