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IKAR in Mass Media

Russian beet sugar output seen up, imports down

12 сентября 2006 года

MOSCOW, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Russian beet sugar output this year may reach a record 3 million tonnes, up from 2.5 million tonnes last year, while imports are likely to fall to about 2.3 million tonnes from 2.9 million, an analyst said on Friday.

"Our forecast for beet sugar production is 2.95-3.0 million tonnes," Yevgeny Ivanov of the independent Institute for Agricultural Market Studies told Reuters.

"We may probably import some 200,000 tonnes more of raw sugar by the end of the year," he said, adding Russia imported 2.13 million tonnes of raw sugar in the first eight months of 2006, down from 2.58 million in the same period last year.

Russia's latest sugar beet test, on the basis of which output forecasts are made, showed sugar content of 14.6 percent, compared with 14.9 percent in the corresponding test last year, the Sugar Producers Union, which conducts the test, said.

It said the root weight in the year's seventh test also declined to 436 grammes from 451 grammes a year ago, but the density of plantings rose to 80,000 beets per hectare from 77,000 and the planted area to 1.004 million hectares from 811,500 hectares.

In a separate statement, the union said Russia had refined 237,200 tonnes of white sugar from beet by Sept. 6, 55.4 percent more than 152,600 tonnes by Sept. 7 last year, due to an early start to harvesting.

The union also estimates Russia's beet sugar refining this year will reach 3 million tonnes.

Official Federal Customs Service data showed on Friday that Russia imported 1.98 million tonnes of raw sugar in the first seven months of 2006, 19 percent less than in the same period a year ago.

White sugar imports fell 32.4 percent to 65,600 tonnes in the same period, the data showed.

HIGH PRICES IN SIBERIA

Ivanov said sugar prices were falling in those parts of Russia where refineries were processing, while traders kept prices high in Siberia.

"Currently we have a unique situation, which some importers may use to bring in additional volumes of raws. Domestic (white sugar) prices in some parts of the country, especially to the east of the Urals -- where there are no refineries -- stay high," he said.

"Local deficits have been created in some regions, but this will only last for a couple of weeks, after which the flood of beet sugar will begin."

In the Krasnodar region, prices fell to $656 per tonne on Friday from a peak of $810 on July 18. In Moscow, they fell to $757 from $851 on Aug. 11, and in Omsk and Novosibirsk they were $829 and $900 per tonne respectively, Ivanov said.

IKAR said the planned setting of a new scale of the raw sugar import tariff, which the country uses to regulate sugar imports, had been delayed.

"Agreements between Russia and some countries, in particular with top supplier Brazil, on the conditions of the country's accession to the World Trade Organisation, do not permit it to change the import regime autonomously," IKAR said.

Under the Russian tariff calculation scheme, the rate of the tariff is set each month and is pegged to the average New York futures price for the three preceding months.

The current rate, the lowest, has remained at $140 per tonne since October 2005.

Source: Reuters  |  #sugar   |  Comments: 0   Views: 68

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