Asian flour millers are set to buy record volumes of wheat from Black Sea producers in 2018 as traditional supplier Australia faces a second year of drought and as demand continues to grow around the region, traders said. Millers in Asia have in the past month or so booked up to 1 million tonnes of new-crop Black Sea wheat for shipments starting in August, two of the traders said, with a wave of similar deals expected to follow. Surging Black Sea wheat sales to Asia threaten to curb Australia’s dominance in supplying the region, where appetite for wheat is climbing as an expanding middle class consumes more noodles, pizzas and cakes, as it moves away from rice. “Even the large mills which were dedicated Australian customers are taking Black Sea cargoes because of the price spread and quality,” said one of the trade sources, based in […]