IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Russian grain prices follow world decline

Reuters

MOSCOW, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Russian grain prices kept declining last week following the world trend, analysts said.

U.S. SRW wheat prices lost $15 per tonne, European wheat $10, while Egypt bought 55,000 tonnes of Russian wheat at $203 per tonne at the latest tender, which is $30 per tonne less than at a previous tender, SovEcon agricultural analysts said.

As a result traders kept lowering most Russian grains bid prices, while significant number of producers refrained from selling essentially milling wheat expecting prices to recover.

At the same time some producers were following a risky strategy of seeking new loans to refinance current debt and sitting on their stocks.

Most grain offer prices lost 100-150 roubles per tonne ($3.82-$5.73) on average, SovEcon said.

Domestic wheat export price has dropped to $210-$220 per tonne FOB Novorossiisk, according to the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR).

In the south of Russia third-grade milling wheat price lost 406 roubles, falling to 5,504 roubles per tonne ex-silo, fourth-grade wheat declined by 499 roubles to 4,386 roubles, fifth-grade feed wheat by 586 roubles to 3,363 roubles.

Maize rouble-denominated prices remained practically unchanged at 3,170 roubles ex-silo in Krasnodar, IKAR said.

Last week a substantial decrease of sunseed prices was registered in Russia, as some big firms lowered purchase prices to 8,500 roubles per tonne from 9,500 roubles, in line with dropping domestic crude oil market prices, IKAR said.

SovEcon added that another factor contributing to the decline was an acceleration in the harvesting campaign due to improved weather.

Domestic sugar prices decreased slightly last week on rising seasonal beet sugar supply and difficulties of processors to find funding, IKAR said.

23.10.08

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