IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Russian wheat export prices crept upward last week

Reuters

MOSCOW, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Export prices for Russian wheat rose slightly again last week but market activity dropped noticeably with the onset of the holiday season, analysts said.

The price of 12.5% protein Russian wheat scheduled for free-on-board (FOB) delivery in late January-early February was $243 per metric ton, up $1 from the previous week, the IKAR agriculture consultancy reported.

The Sovecon agriculture consultancy pegged the same class of wheat at $240-243 a ton FOB last week compared to $238-242 the week before.

"Russian FOB is seen as mostly flat, it’s starting to lose its competitive edge versus France and Romania/Bulgaria," Sovecon noted.

Last week Egyptian GASC bought 480.000 metric tons of Russian-only wheat at $265 FOB (270-day payment delay).

Russia exported 0.86 million tons of grain last week, up from 0.78 million tons the previous week. The exports included 0.68 million tons of wheat, like the week before, Sovecon wrote, citing port data.

It downgraded its estimate of wheat exports in December by 0.2 million tons to 3.8 million tons, compared with 4.1 million tons a year ago.

Harvesting of the 2023 crop is almost complete. Russia's grain harvest in 2023 will amount to 142.6 million metric tonnes in net weight, down 9.5% from the record harvest of 2022 but still its second largest, according to state statistics published on Monday.

The harvest of winter and spring wheat totalled 92.77 million tonnes in net weight, down from 104.23 million tonnes in 2022.

Last week Sovecon had raised its Russian wheat harvest forecast for 2024 to 91.3 million metric tons from 89.8 mmt because of better weather conditions. But weather set-up slightly deteriorates for the new crop on abnormally warm weather, the agency noted in the weekly report.

Sowing of winter grains was carried out on an area of 18.6 million hectares, up from 17.7 million hectares last year, Sovecon wrote. The planting campaign is over.

Other Russian data provided by Sovecon and IKAR:

Product: Most recent data: Change from week earlier

- Domestic 3rd class 12,575 rbls/t 0 rbls/t wheat, European part of Russia, excludes delivery (Sovecon)

- Sunflower seeds 25,075 rbls/t -100 rbls/t (Sovecon)

- Domestic sunflower 73,425 rbls/t 0 rbls/t oil (Sovecon)

- Domestic soybeans 36,400 rbls/t +200 rbls/t (Sovecon)

- Export sunflower $780/t -$10/t oil (IKAR)

- White sugar, $618.25/t -$14.07/t Russia's south (IKAR)

26.12.23

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