Scottish and Newcastle plc announced on December 12 that Sunday's massive oil depot fire at Hemel Hempstead has affected the main distribution centre for its subsidiary, Waverley TBS (WTBS) - the UK wines and spirits wholesaler.

Scottish and Newcastle said: “At the present time we have been unable to access the site but we are relieved that none of our people has been injured.

We believe that WTBS will have incurred significant asset losses but we believe that all asset and subsequent trading losses will be fully recovered from our insurers.

Our principal concern is to support our customers at this critical time. Enormous efforts have been made to minimise the inevitable disruption and we are extremely grateful to all our staff and suppliers for their support thus far.”

HGCA of the U.K. estimates the malt production of 2005/06 at 1.4 million tonnes, only 3 % less than last year. In July/September, however, U.K. maltsters produced 330,000 tonnes or 9 % less than a year ago.

Domestic usage is around 1.2 million tonnes for brewing, distilling and food. British industries had closed 160.000 tons of malt capacities, rumours are that more will follow. In any case British maltsters depend much less on exports than their large competitors on the Continent.

The Canadian Wheat Board said on December 13 sales of malting barley to China, one of Canada's top grain export markets, will likely slump in this marketing year as it can't meet China's quality requirements.

CWB President and Chief Executive Officer Adrian Measner said in an interview with Reuters that exports of Canadian malting barley to China, the world's largest importer of barley for the brewing of beer, would likely drop by about 25 percent in 2005/06 from 700,000 tons last year due to quality problems.

The CWB holds a monopoly on sales of wheat, durum and barley to millers, maltsters and export markets from the Canadian Prairies.

Measner was in Tokyo for an annual visit to CWB customers.

Measner said he was braced for tougher competition in the Chinese market with Australia, which is the world's largest barley exporter and aimed to step up selling to China. Despite expected drops in sales to China, CWB was keeping its overall export projections for wheat and barley in 2005/06 unchanged from its October forecasts, Measner said.

CWB said in October it planned to export 11.5 million tons of wheat, 3.5 million tons of durum and 2 million tons of barley in 2005/06.

Russia's barley harvest this year was of 16.0 to 16.5 million tonnes, according to statistics authorities. Exports of feed barley amounted to 834,000 tons from July 1 till November 10. Supplies close to Black Sea harbours are almost exhausted, total exports are expected not higher than 1.0 to 1.1 million tonnes.

The crop of two-row spring malting barley was of exceptional quality, forecasts of Russian malting barley imports have been reduced time and again, some guesses go below 100,000 tons. Question is whether the Russian storage system can maintain an unprecedented large quantity of 1.7 million tonnes of malting barley in sufficiently good condition through next spring and summer.