Australian Barley Pools Outlooks Unchanged

SYDNEY - May 3/06 - SNS -- The Australian barley marketing board, ABB Grain Ltd, left its gross barley pool indicators for 2005-06 and price estimates unchanged.

ABB Grain's General Manager Marketing, Nigel Officer, said the estimates remained steady despite recent upward currency movements in the Australian dollar which has seen the Aussie climb to around 76 cents against the greenback.

"Chinese demand for malting barley is starting to come to the fore, while feed barley is fully committed with most of it expected to be shipped by the end of June," Officer said.

"The prospects for 2006-07 are also looking promising and while it's still early days yet, favorable rains in the past week in most regions bode well for planting about to begin, or in some cases already underway.

"We will continue to review our estimates for 2006-07 on a regular basis in light of developments in the northern hemisphere harvest and currency movements in particular."

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