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IKAR in Mass Media

Russian wheat prices stall as export rush slows

20 февраля 2012 года

MOSCOW, Feb 6 (Reuters) - A rapid rise in Russian export grain prices has slowed to a halt and may not resume as traders, confident that export loadings will continue into April without new state restrictions, looked to plentiful inland stocks for supplies.

Russia, which dominated sales to the world's biggest wheat importer, Egypt, in the first part of the season, has been ceding its positions as stocks have been decimated and prices driven higher in its southern export regions.

But government indications of duty-free export, at least through April, have allowed traders to buy wheat inland for the longer journey to port for April loading, traders said. Egypt's next buy tender will be for April volumes.

Russia's first deputy prime minister for agriculture, Viktor Zubkov, said on Friday that there was no need for export restrictions in April and raised the government forecast for Russia's exportable surplus to 27 million tonnes from 24 million.

Wheat with 12.5 percent protein content was unchanged at $271 per tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis in thin discussion as traders waited for the government's word on a possible protective export duty, the Institute for Agricultural Markets Research (IKAR) said on Monday.

Levels for wheat delivered to Novorossiisk rose marginally by around 100 roubles per tonne, analysts at the SovEcon consultancy said.

Trade was also severely hampered by cold, stormy weather in the Black Sea, which briefly led to a moratorium on loadings in the deepwater port of Novorossiisk and closed some shallow water ports in the Azov Sea, where ice made navigation dangerous.

But demand re-emerged inland during the week as analysts raised their estimates on Russia's exportable surplus, suggesting that expectations for a protective duty to preserve domestic supply may not materialise.

Traders and analysts had previously calculated that export restrictions could be put in force from April, when exports were expected to reach 23-25 million tonnes, the limit set by the government, and stopped offering April wheat for exports, fearing they would be hit with a protective export duty.

In European Russia, average offer prices for third grade milling wheat rose by 125 percent to 6,525 roubles ($220) per tonne ex-works, while fourth class milling wheat rose by 150 roubles to 6,450 per tonne, SovEcon analysts said.

"Export demand started to flow into other regions. A significant acceleration of price increases for most grains in the Central Black Soil region is linked by market participants to livelier export demand," SovEcon analysts said.

On sunoil, an oversupply of crude sunoil in Central Europe led to a decline of crude sunoil price to $1,027 from $1,040, IKAR said. SovEcon pegged average prices at $1,100 per tonne, down more than $30, and sunseed prices down $5 at $370 per tonne.

IKAR noted consolidation of white sugar trade in the hands of a smaller number of players, reflected in a price increase of around $50 to $778. ($1 = 30.1752 Russian roubles)

Source: Reuters  |  #grain   |  Comments: 0   Views: 39

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