• IKAR in Mass Media

 

 → IKAR in Mass Media → #78

IKAR in Mass Media

Russian 2007 beet sugar output seen lower - analyst

11 октября 2007 года

MOSCOW, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Russian sugar output from this year's beet crop is likely to fall to 3.1-3.2 million tonnes from an earlier forecast of 3.4-3.5 million tonnes and last year's production of 3.3 million tonnes, a leading analyst said.

Beet sugar output could even fall to 3.05 million tonnes as harvesting is lagging last year's progress and yields are down, the independent Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) said in a monthly note seen by Reuters on Monday.

Russia had harvested 11.7 million tonnes of sugar beet from 412,000 hectares of land, or 39 percent of the targeted area, by Oct. 2 -- a decline of 2.6 million tonnes on year-ago volumes.

IKAR said yields had declined by 3.3 tonnes to 26.9 tonnes per hectare.
Russia, the world's largest raw sugar importer, refines more than half of the 5.8 million tonnes of white sugar it consumes annually from domestic beet. Most of the rest is refined from imported raws.

IKAR estimated Russian October raw sugar imports at 300,000-350,000 tonnes, compared with 121,529 tonnes in September 2007 and 41,000 tonnes in October last year.

"Of this, around 247,000 tonnes of raw cane sugar were on their way to Russia at the start of the month. And the exact destination and buyers of another 355,000 tonnes, part of which may reach Russia in October, are as yet unknown," IKAR said.

"It appears that imports of raw sugar have risen substantially on expectations of setting of the seasonal tariff," the institute added.

SEASONAL TARIFF

To protect beet growers and refiners, the Russian Sugar Producers' Union industry lobby has persuaded the Economy Ministry to present to the government a draft of an order setting a higher seasonal tariff for six months from December.

The rate of the new tariff, which will substitute the current $140 per tonne duty, will depend on the average price of sugar in New York.

With the New York price equal to or above $198.43 per tonne, the rate will be $220 per tonne. Between $182.99 and $198.42 per tonne, the tariff will be $235 per tonne, and between $99.22 and $182.98 it will be $250 per tonne.

If prices fall below $99.22 per tonne, the tariff will be set at $270, IKAR said.
IKAR said it believed prospects for setting the tariff remained good, despite the dismissal last month of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Economy Minister German Gref as part of a wider government reshuffle.

Russian white sugar prices fell to the end of September, under pressure from the appearance new-crop beet sugar, but started rising again at the end of the month, IKAR said.

Prices jumped to 14.6 roubles ($0.584) per kg in the benchmark Krasnodar region at the end of the month after reaching a low of 13.5 roubles on Sept. 20. Prices in Moscow rose to 14.9 roubles from 14.6 roubles in the same period.

IKAR said the reasons behind the rise could be the tariff news and the worse-than-expected crop outlook, as well as disruptions in sugar shipments by rail.

IKAR expects sugar prices to fall in the next two to four months on high domestic sugar stocks, high imports, and a shortage of funds available to producers.

Source: Reuters  |  #sugar   |  Comments: 0   Views: 86

There are no comments yet. Be the first!

Only authorized users can comment.