Tea Tree Market Update - September 2012 - Sep 19, 2012

Recent estimates conducted by abp suggest this year's total Tea Tree production will be down around 100m/t, due to a large loss of yield in influential growing areas. This equates to an overall loss of around 30% on previous typical years.

The worst hit area was Port Macquarie, but depending on elevation and irrigation controls the losses can also be seen across other growing areas, with some farms considering not harvesting at all.

Should normal market demands prevail we would expect to see some shortages appear in the market over the coming months. Whether this will effect prices remains unclear.

It's welcoming news that abp's growing partners stretch across all of Australia's major growing regions and in contrast to others some of our partners have seen relatively good production, with high quality oil being produced.

At this stage it would be our recommendation to discuss your future requirements with us so we can take the appropriate steps to secure any on-going requirements.

The below statement was released a couple of weeks ago by ATTIA:

As a consequence of a combination of circumstances mainly caused by sustained higher than average rainfall in one particular region, the yield for 2012 is expected to be down substantially, possibly by as much as 50%. Since this region has some of Australia's larger Tea Tree Oil producers it is likely that the supply of oil will be tight for the next 12 months or so.

While some districts will likely achieved an average yield this year and North Queensland has recovered from the cyclone and wet weather damage of last year this will on balance of probabilities not be enough to make up for the substantial and significant loss of production being experienced elsewhere.

ATTIA members need to carefully consider their future marketing options for pure Australian tea tree oil in the light of this market alert forecast.

<< Back