IKAR in Mass Media

Russian wheat prices rise slightly on weak rouble, limited sales

18 ноября 2014 года

MOSCOW: Russian wheat prices rose slightly last week supported by the falling rouble and limited crops sales by farmers, an analyst said on Monday.

Russia, one of the world's key wheat suppliers to North Africa and the Middle East, has seen its currency lose about third of its value against the dollar so far in 2014 due to a fall in oil prices and the Ukraine crisis.

"Farmers continue to hold onto their grains sales and prefer to sell sunflower seeds, which have a shorter storage period, when they need funds," SovEcon, a Moscow-based agriculture consultancy, said in a note.

Russia's Black Sea prices for wheat with 12.5 percent protein content were up $2 last week at $255 per tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis compared with a week earlier, SovEcon said.

IKAR, another local consultancy, quoted FOB prices for wheat with the same protein content unchanged at $250 per tonne in the Black Sea and down $2 at $220 per tonne in the Azov Sea.

So far this 2014/15 marketing year, which started on July 1, Russia has exported 16.2 million tonnes of grain, including 13.2 million tonnes of wheat, 2.2 million tonnes of barley and 658,000 tonnes of maize (corn), the Agriculture Ministry said.

The pace of exports are 39 percent higher than at the same date a year ago after a near-record crop, it added. Farmers have already harvested 109.5 million tonnes of grains before drying and cleaning from 97 percent of the planned area.

In the domestic sunflower seed market, SovEcon said prices rose 800 roubles to 16,350 roubles ($345) per tonne, while FOB Black Sea prices for crude sunflower oil were down $5 to $835 a tonne.

Farmers have already harvested 8.6 million tonnes of sunseeds from 90 percent of the area and SovEcon expects the crop of this cereal to fall by 17 percent, year-on-year, to 8.8 million tonnes.

Winter grains for the next year's harvest have been sowed on 16.6 million hectares, which is 5.5 percent more than the country planned originally. However, the plantings are in a weak condition after a rainy and cold autumn, SovEcon added.

Source: Business Recorder | #grain | Comments: 0 Views: 72

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