IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Russian Wheat Prices Climb for Second Week on French Crop Woes

Bloomberg

Russian wheat-export prices climbed for a second week, extending gains from the lowest in at least six years as the outlook for French and German crops worsened.

Wheat for loading at Black Sea ports rose 1.2 percent from a week earlier to $166 a metric ton as of Friday, Dmitry Rylko, director general of Moscow-based Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, or Ikar, said by phone.

France’s Agriculture Ministry cut its output forecast by 21 percent on Friday after heavy rains damaged crops, sending yields to the lowest level since 1986. France is the European Union’s biggest wheat producer. Rains have been delaying Germany’s harvest, and farmers have gathered a third of the crop in some regions, the German Farmers Association said last week.

Russian export prices are rising due to “continued unfavorable outlook for crops in France and, to a lesser degree, Germany,” Moscow-based consultant SovEcon said in an e-mailed note. The company quoted the price at $167 a ton, up $2.5 from a week earlier.

Ukraine Prices

Rains have damaged the quality of Russian wheat as well by causing excessive moisture in May and June. Russia’s western regions produced a smaller share of milling wheat than last year, according to surveys by the government’s wheat-quality agency.

Wheat growers were holding back on sales of high-protein grain before they received more information on the quality of the new crop, Marina Sych, an analyst at UkrAgroConsult, said by e-mail.

In Ukraine, wheat prices rose 2.4 percent to $168 a ton last week, extending gains since trading at the lowest since at least 2011 in July, according to Kiev-based UkrAgroConsult. Prices from the Russian and Ukrainian research companies are for wheat with a protein content of 12.5 percent on a free-on-board basis.

Wheat for delivery in the French port of Rouen with a minimum 11 percent protein content rose 0.6 percent last week to 167.73 euros a ton ($185.95), according to data from FranceAgriMer.

09.08.16

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