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  • Raw sugar shipments in Feb’20 were at an eight-year high after many of the January nominations were delayed until February.
  • The delay occurred as the release of the Indonesian import permits was held back until the end of the January.
  • Record whites shipments in Q4’19 pushed 2019 Thai whites flows to a record.

Raws Shipments: Second Largest Shipments on Record 

  • After relatively unimpressive shipments in Jan’20, they more than doubled in Feb’20, with 567k tonnes being shipped. 
  • Most of the trade nominated a vessel in January in anticipation of the import permits being released, but these were delayed until the 31st January, meaning Indonesian refiners had to wait until February to load the vessels. 
  • Indonesian regulation states that the import permits need to be released before the vessel can be loaded as a pre-shipment inspection needs to be conducted against the import permits received.
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  • After such a busy February, March is off to a slower start with just 101k tonnes in the lineup as we approach the halfway mark. 
  • 71k tonnes of these nominations are from Indonesia. 
  • Considering 794k tonnes were shipped in Mar’19, this seems especially low. 
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Whites Shipments Start Strong in 2020 

  • Whites shipments started strong in 2020, up 109k tonnes year-on-year (YoY). 
  • Despite this, the decline in shipments, which begun in Oct’19, is yet to show any sign of rebounding.
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  • With 303k tonnes having been shipped, Cambodia was the top destination, taking 57k tonnes in January. 
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  • This is interesting as shipments to key smuggling regions* were generally down by 705k tonnes YoY as 2019 ended. 
  • They were also down 55k tonnes between Dec’19 and Jan’20. 

*Key Smuggling Regions: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan and Vietnam. 

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  • It could well be the case that this decline comes as a response to the Coronavirus, which has now been called a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO). 
  • The virus has impacted many areas of the commodity markets to date and has unsurprisingly impacted Chinese smuggling flows. 

Will Langston

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