IKAR in Mass Media

Russian grain, sunseed prices fall on low exports

07 ноября 2008 года

MOSCOW, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Russian grain prices fell last week on low world prices, low demand from exporters, high crop and decline of the rouble currency, analysts said in reports.

Domestic prices lost between 150 and 350 roubles ($5.55-$12.94) per tonne, SovEcon Agricultural analysts said.

Standard wheat export prices declined to $190 per tonne FOB Novorossiisk, the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) said.

IKAR said domestic prices in the south of Russia had approached the state support level, enabling producers in the region to take part in government-purchase intervention tenders.

SovEcon believes that the downward trend will continue to dominate the country's grain market in the short term.

"The government plans to raise the support price for third-grade wheat to 5,500 roubles per tonne from Nov.1 from 5,100 roubles for the European part of Russia and 5,000 for the Asian part do not appear sufficient enough to stabilise the market," it said.

SovEcon said third and fourth-grade wheat lost some 300 roubles per tonne on average, while feed maize lost 350 roubles.

According to preliminary IKAR figures, Russian grain exports exceeded 8.2 million tonnes since the start of the year, including 7.35 million tonnes of wheat and 0.82 million tonnes of barley.

SovEcon said exporters' activity was generally low, as some traders took a break to concentrate on fulfilling already signed contracts.

Only some big exporters in the North Caucasus emerged with bids of 4,500-5,000 roubles for fourth-grade wheat, including delivery to ports.

Russian sunseed prices fell further last week as processors kept lowering bid prices on high crop, SovEcon said.

IKAR has increased its Russian sunseed output forecast to a record 7.2 million tonnes from the previous 7.0 million.

It said last week prices went down to 7,500-8,000 roubles.

Average crude sunoil price fell to 24,200 roubles per tonne.

SovEcon said average sunseed offer prices dropped by 600 roubles per tonne, while those of crude sunoil fell by 1,250 roubles.

"We expect the growing virtual surplus on the domestic market to cause a further price decline, and domestic prices will be adjusted to export prices, which are formed at the level of $760-$780 per tonne," IKAR said.

It said last week several domestic refiners undertook a brave attempt to raise sugar prices and achieved an increase to 14,100 roubles per tonne from 13,900 at the start of the week.

IKAR has lowered its beet sugar output forecast to 2.91 million tonnes from 2.94 million tonnes previously.

Source: Reuters | #grain #oilseeds | Comments: 0 Views: 78

There are no comments yet. Be the first!

Only authorized users can comment.