CANBERRA/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Australian wheat inventories will likely be much higher than last year at the end of the season, pressuring prices, because of a drop in Chinese imports and competition from ample supplies out of rival exporter Russia, analysts and traders said.

A fire sale of stored grain may be necessary to clear space before the new wheat harvest in the last quarter of the year, which would weigh on benchmark Chicago futures already trading near their lowest since 2020 because of abundant global supply. [GRA/]

Australia sent just 546,000 metric tons of wheat to China during the October to March period, the first six months of its marketing season, down from 2.9 million tons in the first six months of the 2023/24 season and 4.4 million tons in the same period in 2022/23, Australian customs data show.

Shipments from Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, have also remained strong despite the second quarter typically being its pre-harvest lean export season.

The next Northern Hemisphere wheat harvest, including Russia's, will ramp up in coming weeks, pouring cheap grain onto the market and limiting Australia's export prospects, said Vitor Pistoia, an analyst at Rabobank in Sydney.

"If the current pace of Australian exports continues, we're going to have 5-6 million tons of carryover from last season's crop," he said.

"We are building up a massive problem. It's not like the global market is short of supply," he said, adding that it may lead to mass selling of grain that could push prices towards A$300 ($194) a ton from between A$325 to A$350 now.

Total carryover including grain from past seasons could be as high as 8 million tons, said a source at an international grain trader based in Australia.

"If the new season crops look good, it can become a storage capacity issue. It forces people to sell cheaper into the export market to clear space," the source said.

Australia's end-of-season wheat stocks have averaged 3.3 million tons in the last five years, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Four million tons is comfortable," the source said. "More than 6 is getting difficult."

Analysts expect Australia to produce 28 million-34 million tons of wheat this year. That would be down from last year's 34.1 million tons but well above the ten-year average of 27.6 million tons, according to government data.

Chinese buyers booked four or five 55,000-ton shipments of Australian wheat around the start of May, but these are the only new Chinese purchases this calendar year and have not been followed up with more.

China, which was experiencing hot and dry in key growing regions, is likely to see rainfall in those areas through next Tuesday which could further reduce demand for imported wheat.

Russia, meanwhile, has continued to ship grain at competitive prices even during its off season, said a grain trader in Singapore.

"We were hoping more Australian wheat cargoes would reach destinations in the Middle East and Africa," they said. "There were expectations that Russia would have less to export."

($1 = 1.5530 Australian dollars)