Russian wheat export prices jump

Russian wheat export prices jumped alongside European benchmarks last week while domestic prices were tempered by higher supply from farmers selling to raise cash for spring sowing, analysts said on Monday.
Russian wheat with 12.5% protein content loaded from Black Sea ports and for the nearest delivery jumped by $10 to $217 a tonne free on board (FOB) at the end of last week, SovEcon said. Barley was unchanged at $177 a tonne.
IKAR, another Moscow agriculture consultancy, pegged wheat at $222 a tonne, up $15. Prices for the new crop, which is due to arrive this summer, rose slightly to $198 a tonne.
Russia's Agriculture Ministry on Friday proposed a 7 million tonne quota on Russia's grain exports for the second quarter.
Government approval of the quota may come quickly, SovEcon said, adding that the limit is reasonable and probably will not be reached.
However, Russia could take other steps to slow exports later because domestic prices are still rising.
"Buyers are putting more pressure on authorities asking them to regulate the market," SovEcon said.
Domestic flour prices rose by 700 roubles to 18,875 roubles a tonne last week.
Some traders told SovEcon last week that they found it hard to obtain phytosanitary export certificates for wheat, peas and oilseeds, the consultancy said, though the agriculture ministry was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying there had been no slowdown in the issue of the certificates.
Russia exported 30.2 million tonnes of grain between the July 1 start of the 2019/20 season and March 26, down 17% from a year earlier, SovEcon said, citing customs data. Of this, wheat exports accounted for 25.9 million tonnes.
The agriculture ministry last week said it was preparing to start selling grain from state stockpiles. It has 1.8 million tonnes of grain, mostly in Siberia.
The weather remained dry in Russia's southern regions, except for some rain in part of the Stavropol and Rostov regions, SovEcon said. The Volga and the central regions had some rain again last week.