IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Russia Boosts Central Asia Sugar Sales on Crop, Price, Ikar Says

Bloomberg

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Russia will export the most sugar since 2007 as a record sugar-beet harvest bolsters supplies available for shipping to Central Asia and lowers prices, the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies said.

Russia's sugar exports were 12,000 metric tons in August and 20,000 tons in September, according to the institute, known as Ikar. Eighty percent of shipments went to Central Asia by rail, said Evgeny Ivanov, a senior sugar analyst at the Moscow-based Institute. The region includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and the northern part of Afghanistan.

"We became a powerful player in the local market and got up from our knees," Ivanov said today by phone in Moscow. "Domestic sugar prices fell in the autumn so far below world prices that Russian sugar became attractive in the post-Soviet Central Asian states." Alternative suppliers including European Union countries had made inroads in recent years into the region, a traditional market for Russian sugar, he said.

White, or refined, sugar for December delivery traded at $717.60 a ton on the NYSE Liffe exchange in London by 4:40 p.m. local time. Russia's domestic price was about 21,000 rubles ($679) a ton today, Ivanov said. The country will export at least 200,000 tons of sugar made from beets in the current season, the most since 2007, when exports exceeded 300,000 tons, he said.

The government sees the sugar-beet crop as high as a record 40 million tons. That would be enough to process 4.5 million to 5 million tons of white sugar this marketing year, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said Oct. 5.

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The harvest may reach an all-time high of 48 million tons if current yields are maintained through November and farmers collect all the crop, Ikar said. Last year, Russia harvested 22.3 million tons of beets and produced 2.7 million tons of sugar from the domestic crop and imported raw sweetener, according to government statistics.

The harvest may allow traders to make shipments to new markets in the Mediterranean region by sea routes, according to Vladimir Gloukhov, a sugar trader at the Moscow office of Cargill Inc., the U.S.'s largest closely-held company.

"Several companies have plans to do pilot shipments," Gloukhov said today by phone in Moscow. "Taking into account sugar quality, North Africa and Middle East are the most probable consumers."

24.10.11

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