Source: China AGLOOK!
        Well into this week, Ethiopia sesame prices have been skyrosketing, with a hiking rate of 100 USD/MT. Now let’s find out the reasons behind the hiking up.
1. Drought caused by El Nino fuled up the prices.
        According to a newly-released report by WFP, the new round of El Nino has brought devastating impact upon the economy across the countries in the south of Africa. It’s believed the drought caused by El Nino to be the worst in history. Affected by El Nino, Vietnam and Burma have also seen high temperature and drought. Under the circumstance, plant aceages across major production regions like India, Burma, Vietnam and Mozambique will significantly decline this year.
All of the bads news have caused panic among sesame traders and they worry global supply will be cut in 2016, which would turn the balance between demand & supply up and down. Considering the current situation and future forecast, Ethiopia exporters all have tried to raise the prices.

2. How’s going in Ethiopia?         

    According to Ethiopia exporters, total sesame volume available for sale is less than 370,000 tons in Ethiopia. Meanwhile, from Dec 9, 2015 to Mar 22, 2016, it traded about 265,561 tons on ECX in total for new season sesame, which means the volume available for sale is less than 100,000 tons in Ethiopia. Over the past two years, China imports 180,000 tons of sesame from Ethiopia. But due to the delayed shipments and cancellation of orders, total cargos hitting China between Feb and Mar is estimated to be less than 40,000 tons, which means it’s short of 120,000 tons as far as average China imports is concerned.

Lately, as the prices have been soaring up in Ethiopia, some exporters have cancelled orders. In the long run, this is not good for the market.

3. How’s going in China?         

    From what we gathered, as the prices hiked up from Ethiopia in March, lots of China importers have stopped to buy sesame from Ethiopia even there’s a huge profit gap considering the current market. Another reason is because some Ethiopian exporters have cancelled orders by China importers. Another thing worth noting is now China sesame port stocks only maintains about 36,000 tons.

 Meanwhile, in March and April, lots of shipments from Ethiopia, Sudan and West Africa will hit China ports, but due to the delay at Djibouti Port, it’s expected that the shipments will arrive at China in May. During this period of time, more port stocks will be consumed in China.
(Personal views for reference only)