The California Almond Board March Position Report

The California Almond Board has released the Almond Position Report with shipments of +184.9 million pounds compared to last year 193.9 million pounds for a decrease of 4.6 percent.

EXPORTS              +124 mill lbs      -4.9%

DOMESTIC          +60 mill lbs         -4.1%

For the month of March, India has another strong month with an increase of 3 million pounds, while China had a decrease of 11 million pounds, Korea was up 3 million pounds, UAE finally had a decrease of 3 million pounds after many strong months in a row of shipments.  Spain was down 2 million pounds for the month while Germany dropped by 1 million for the month compared to last year.

YEAR TO DATE SHIPMENTS:  We are now at +1.588  billion pounds compared to last year 1.616 billion pounds for a -1.69 percent.

DOMESTIC account for 31% of all sales

EXPORTS account for 69% of all sales

ASIA accounts for 29% of all sales

EUROPE accounts for 26% of all sales

SUB SAHRAN AFRICA accounts for 10% of all sales

Western Europe               -7%

Middle East                        +2%

North Africa                       +164%

China/HK                            -31%

India                                      +4%

Spain                                     -5%

Germany                             -20%

Turkey                                  -35%

UAE                                       +8%

Saudi Arabia                      +45%

South Korea                       +15%

CROP RECEIPTS: Now at 2.264 billion pounds compared to last year’s 2.256 billion pounds.

MARCH SHIPMENTS and MARKET: The overall Almond market was active in March with new sales  147 million pounds.  Prices on Stds and SSR firmed up in the early part of the month, then stabilized, and during the recent week started to weaken a few cents per pound with Stds at 2.78 and SSR at 2.85 FAS.  Nonpareil kernels sales have slowed as most of the Middle East is well covered for the Ramadan Holiday with NP X 23/25 at 3.10 FAS.  Inshell prices definitely climbed through the most of March and have recent settled to 2.30-2.35 FAS for current crop.    The industry is now at 79.6% sold for the current crop and carry in at this time.

CROP: The new 2019 crop looks better than last year for the majority of the valley.  The Southern part of the valley ( Kern County) has one of their better crops and Fresno also looks good.  As we go up the valley we start to see some inconsistent orchards due to the rain and cool temperatures during the bloom.  Some growers report that their younger trees look good while others will state inconsistent.  Limited new crop sales have taken place thus far as buyer would like better prices and prefer to wait while growers would like strong prices.  One agency has announced their unofficial crop estimate for 2019 at 2.452 billion pounds and we expect another group to announce their unofficial crop estimate this week as well.