Almond Market Update December 2021 Week 48

Once again, the global almond market saw a drift in prices this week as European demand receded and sellers withdrew, expecting prices to strengthen soon. Luckily, prices for STDS and most NPX kernels rose. However, the overall outcome wasn't too favorable as prices for in-shell and some SSR and supreme-grade products fell.

Market Updates

In the last couple of weeks, we saw that most European buyers were interested in purchasing more almonds and were able to do so quite easily. However, this week, there wasn't much market activity, partly due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.

Overall, it is expected that demand from Europe will increase in the coming weeks. This is because Europe needs almonds for beyond Q2 in 2022, and while it is covered for now, it will continue to make trade deals to ensure that it has a good stock.

About the California Crop

Around 42% of the California crop of almonds was sold in October 2021, about 2.8-billion lb, a drop from 51% back in October 2020. Last week, various offers were withdrawn from the US market partly due to the fact that call-pool sellers have been absent from the market.

They have been hoping to sell at better prices elsewhere, and we shall have to see what happens there. STDS for shipments continues to operate at premium prices for closer shipments.

Demand Elsewhere

In-shell demand from India has been quite moderate, with most activity focused on sized NPIS due to an increase in small kernels in many loads. On Tuesday, sellers were able to offer unsized NPIS at $1.75/lb FAS on a 70% sliding scale.

This is an increase from the prices from two weeks ago which were at $1.66/lb FAS. Sized NPIS price premiums to unsized NPIS were as high as 13 cents/lb last week, with larger sizes garnering higher premiums.

In Asia, there was an interest from South Korea due to a confectionery demand, while demand from Japan decreased compared to the previous after buyers booked several containers.