Russian wheat down for third week amid strong competition

• Egypt's state grain buyer bought 180,000 tonnes of Russian and 180,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat last week.
• Temperatures dropped in some regions of the European part of Russia last week but the cold snap was short enough to have no effect on winter grain sowings.

MOSCOW: Russian wheat export prices registered a third consecutive weekly decline last week, hit by strong competition with other major exporters and a decline in global benchmarks in Chicago, analysts said on Monday.

Egypt's state grain buyer bought 180,000 tonnes of Russian and 180,000 tonnes of Romanian wheat last week. Egypt is traditionally the second-largest buyer of Russian wheat behind Turkey.

Russian wheat with 12.5pc protein content, loaded from Black Sea ports, fell by $6 to $220 a tonne free on board (FOB) at the end of last week, SovEcon said. Barley was steady ay $192 a tonne.

IKAR, another agricultural consultancy in Moscow, pegged wheat at $220 a tonne, down $3.

Russia exported 26.5 million tonnes of grain, including 22.9 million tonnes of wheat, between the July 1 start to the 2019/20 season and Feb. 13, SovEcon said, citing customs data. Total grain exports were down 19pc from a year earlier.

"We expected the export pace to pick up in February but it is not the case so far. It remains slow," SovEcon said. "Things could still improve in the next few weeks as traders' margins start to recover."

SovEcon also said that domestic prices in the European part of Russia could come under additional pressure after the government last week approved some subsidies for transportation of 2.1 million tonnes of grain by railway from Siberia and Urals to southern ports and other regions.

Temperatures dropped in some regions of the European part of Russia last week but the cold snap was short enough to have no effect on winter grain sowings, SovEcon said.