1. Trading offer & request

At this moment there is one REQUEST for 260 tons of barley on the trading portal www.e-malt.com

• Request for 260 mtons of barley, Any 2RS or 2RW, crop 2003, bulk, delivery 1/10/2003 - 31/1/2004, at USD 180.00 /mton, C&F by sea Karachi. (to see and make a bid to the barley request, please click here to view code BR2105P1456)
  
  

 Top Industry News 

• The world’s second largest beer company, SABMiller Plc, is to capitalise on the growing Indian beer market Click here
  
  
• Tsingtao Brewery, the biggest Chinese beer maker with listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong, has reported that it sold 920,000 tons of beer during the first four months ... Click here
  
  
• India: McDowell AlcoBev, a joint venture firm between United Breweries Ltd (UB) Group, Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) and Ravi Jain, has acquired a 51.75 % equity stake in Inertia Industries Ltd. ... Click here
  
  
• In Russia malting plants use tax remissions, offered for the producers of agricultural products. That is why four out of eight Russian plants of Sun Interbrew have joined ... Click here
  
  
• There are around 200 malting plants in China. 60% of them have a production capacity of less than 10 thousand tons Click here
  
  
• USA barley acreage intentions are 2.18 million ha, 6 % up against the last year figures ... Click here
  
  
• One of the important reasons for the collapse of prices for malting barley this year is that high prices had two effects ... Click here
  
  

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

• Carlsberg Brewery Malaysia Bhd has reported a net profit of MR27.67m (US$7.28m) for the first quarter of the year, 14.5% down ...more info



• The Dutch brewing force Heineken might need to acquire stronger local premium beer brands in the future ...more info



• As a response to its ongoing problems, Miller Brewing Co. will launch an “organizational restructure” that will include more job losses within the company ...more info



• Beer sales in Norway have fallen by almost 5% so far this year, according to the P4 radio station ...more info



• Latvia produced about 25.59 million litres of beer during the first quarter of the current year that is with 5.47 million litres or by 27% more than for the same period last year ...more info



• Slovak Brewers are expecting a bad year in 2004 when excise duty will increase by between Sk2.25 and Sk4.45 (€0.05 and €0.11) per bottle of beer ...more info



• UK- and SA-listed SABMiller plc (SAB), the world's second largest brewer by volume, has reported an 11% rise in US dollar terms in its adjusted earnings per share (EPS) for the financial year to end-March 2003 ...more info



• Antonio Tizzano, advocate general of the European Court of Justice, has ruled that the Czech company, Budejovice Budvar should be allowed to use the "Bud" tradename in Austria ...more info



• The Danish brewing force Carlsberg is considering buying a stake in the German drinks group, Brau und Brunnen ...more info



• Britain's Taube Hodson Stonex Partner Ltd. has bought another 138,000 shares in Carlsberg, bringing its stake to 5.44 % ...more info



• SG Securities has reduced its rating on, SABMiller, the UK-based international brewing group, from "hold" to "sell" ...more info



• The Russian brewer, Yarpivo, has registered a net profit of RUB 1.310 billion (US$42 million) for 2002, 19.1% up versus 2003 net profit ...more info



• William K. Coors has retired from the Adolph Coors Company and Coors Brewing Company boards. Coors is a 64-year veteran of the company and grandson of the brewery's founder, Adolph Coors ...more info



• Carlsberg's brewery based in Stavanger, Norway, named Tou Bryggeri, will most likely be the one that will go when Carlsberg restructures its Norwegian activities ...more info



• Deutsche Bank has reported on May 20 it was beginning coverage of Mexican beer company Grupo Modelo with a "hold" rating, saying the company "is not an exciting story for the next 12 months" ...more info



• Beer and wine maker Lion Nathan increased its New Zealand earnings by 7.4 % in the past half year thanks in part to last year’s increase in per-capita beer consumption ...more info



• Oregon microbrewers say they fear a boost in the beer tax would hit them harder than it will the big brewers and put them at a disadvantage in a cutthroat market ...more info



• Murree Breweries, Pakistan’s largest brewery, is expecting that with the improvement in situation, it would be exporting a significant quantity of its beer production to India ...more info




2. Brewery News

The world’s second largest beer company, SABMiller Plc, is to capitalise on the growing Indian beer market. According to the company’s announcement made on May 21 2003, Mysore Breweries Ltd, a subsidiary of SABMiller based in India, has entered into a 50-50 joint venture company with India's second biggest brewing group, Shaw Wallace and Company Limited. According to the deal, signed in Dubai, SABMiller invested US$132.8 million for its 50% stake in the venture, which is to trade as Shaw Wallace Breweries Ltd. The joint venture company is to hold all the brewing interests and licences of both Mysore and Shaw Wallace. The new company will have a national manufacturing base of 11 owned breweries and 11 contract ones, and a wide portfolio of brands, including Haywards, Royal Challenge, Castle Lager and Knockout...more info

Tsingtao Brewery, the biggest Chinese beer maker with listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong, has reported that it sold 920,000 tons of beer during the first four months, a 9.67% rise versus the same period last year, China Securities Journal posted. However, the company said it had seen slower sales growth in the wake of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak. In the first quarter of this year, Tsingtao sold 630,000 tonnes of beer, up 11 % from the first quarter of last year. Sales volume growth was 21% in 2002. “It's still early to tell whether we can achieve our target of brewing 3.6 million kilolitres of beer this year,'' a Tsingao's official said. Tsingtao's 47 factories on the mainland have a combined production capacity of 4.6 million kilolitres.

India: McDowell AlcoBev, a joint venture firm between United Breweries Ltd (UB) Group, Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) and Ravi Jain, has acquired a 51.75 % equity stake in Inertia Industries Ltd, a UB Group company, and formalised proposals to inject Rs 180-crore into the joint venture firm. The company has made an open offer to shareholders of Inertia, which belongs to United Breweries Ltd (UBL), to acquire an additional 25 % stake. McDowell AlcoBev said it has reached an agreement to acquire 51.75 % stake in Inertia and two companies controlled by Ravi Jain. It has also received commitments totalling Rs 300-crore for its business expansion plans in the Indian beer market and following the acquisition will have its own captive capacity of 15 million cases through its breweries at Aurangabad and Dharuhera.

3. Malt News

In Russia malting plants use tax remissions, offered for the producers of agricultural products. That is why four out of eight Russian plants of Sun Interbrew have joined into a single company named OAO “United brewing plants”, Russian media reported. On April 30 2003, the four plants Rostar (Omsk), Klinsky brewery (Moscow), Kursk brewing company and Saranskaia brewery have finished the merging into a single company. The shares of the reorganized plants were converted into the shares of the new company. Sun Interbrew intends to join all its eight Russian brewing plants by the end of the current year, adding to “United brewing plants” Ivanovsk brewery, Bavaria (St. Petersburg), Permsk brewery and Povoljie brewery (Volgograd). The main reason of merging the enterprises is the company tendency to lower the volumes of tax payments. In that way all brewing plants of SUN Interbrew will be able to use the tax remissions, offered for the producers of agricultural products, which are malting plants. At present, only six of eight Russian brewers owned by Sun Interbrew have their own malt-houses. In Ukraine Sun Interbrew owns three breweries: OAO Iantari, OAO Rogani, ZAO Desna.

There are around 200 malting plants in China. 60% of them have a production capacity of less than 10 thousand tons, and 5% of more than 70 thousand tons. Some of the plants don’t have cooling systems and function only 4 months per annum. Currently, 3 new malt plants with a total project capacity of 500 thousand tons are under construction.

4. Barley News

USA barley acreage intentions are 2.18 million ha, 6 % up against the last year figures. North Dakota is the only state, where an increase of 25 % or 162 thousand ha is forecasted. Minnesota and Washington anticipate smaller plantings of 120 thousand and 160 thousand ha respectively. The moisture situation is definitely better than last year, but further good precipitation will be useful during the growing season.

One of the important reasons for the collapse of prices for malting barley this year is that high prices had two effects. They brought much larger supplies out in the EU market than earlier forecast. Earlier estimates of an EU export surplus of 1.2-1.5 million tons will be surpassed by real exports of more than 2 million tons. Buyers of EU malting barley were penalized by the revaluation of the Euro, which was US $ 0,9913 on July 1, 2002, and is US $ 1,17 today. The second effect was that buyers struggled to find alternatives. More local barley in China, some feed barley, a larger usage of adjuncts contributed to lower needs of imported malting barley.