Russian wheat prices rise further on strong global benchmarks

Russian wheat export prices rose for the second consecutive week last week as the Russian market continued to reflect stronger global prices in Chicago, analysts said on Monday.

Russian wheat with 12.5% protein loading from Black Sea ports and for supply in September was at $216 a tonne free on board (FOB) at the end of last week, up $5 from the previous week, agriculture consultancy IKAR said in a note.

Sovecon, another Moscow consultancy, pegged wheat up $8 at $214 a tonne, and barley up $1 at $186 a tonne.

Russian farmers, sowing winter wheat for the next year’s crop now, are getting increasingly concerned about the lack of precipitation, Sovecon said.

Even light rains would help the development of their future crop, but most of the regions are expected to remain dry in the next two weeks, it added.

Farmers have sown winter grains for the 2021 crop on 23% of the planned area, or on 4.2 million hectares.

Speaking about this year’s crop, Sovecon said Russia’s southern regions were expected to harvest very small crops of maize (corn) and sunflower.
It did not disclose its estimate for their size, but said that this could slow down sales of already harvested wheat and barley by farmers, who would no longer need to free up their storage for corn and sunflower, it added.

Other Russian data provided by Sovecon and IKAR:
Product: Price at the end Change from week
of last week: earlier
– Domestic 3rd 12,750 rbls/t +300 rbls
class wheat, ($169)
European part of
Russia, excludes
delivery
(Sovecon)
– Sunflower seeds 22,575 rbls/t -650 rbls
(Sovecon)
– Domestic no offers n/a
sunflower oil
(Sovecon)
– export $835/t +$50
sunflower oil
(Sovecon)
– Soybeans 28,050 rbls/t -200 rbls
(Sovecon)
– white sugar, $441.2/t +$2.6
Russia’s south
(IKAR)
($1 = 75.4800 roubles)
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by David Evans)