Russian wheat prices fall following Egyptian tender

Russian wheat prices fell for a third week in a row on Monday following the results of the latest Egyptian tenders, which Russia won by undercutting prices of competitors, analysts said. Russia has won a series of tenders run by Egyptian state grain buyer GASC, the latest one jointly with Kazakhstan. Russian grain was bought at $250-$252.50 per tonne, Kazakh grain at $254 at the tender.
The wheat of the closest competitor, France, was offered at $270. At the previous tender Russian wheat was bought at $261-$263 per tonne. "FOB price of benchmark Russian milling wheat with 11.5 percent protein content in Novorossiisk dropped below the psychologically important level of $250 per tonne to $245 per tonne," the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) said in a weekly note.
Domestic prices followed suit. Average EXW wheat prices in the European part of Russia declined by 75 roubles to 6,125 roubles ($190) per tonne for third-grade milling wheat and by 100 roubles for fourth-grade to 6,000 roubles per tonne, SovEcon agricultural analysts said in their note. Feed wheat fell by 50 roubles to 5,150 roubles per tonne, SovEcon said.
IKAR said third-grade wheat prices declined by $2 to $198 per tonne, fourth-grade by $1 to $191 and feed wheat by $3 to $174 per tonne. Powerful lobby the Russian Grain Union said on Monday that Russian FOB prices may fall below $220 per tonne in September for benchmark fourth-grade wheat in December on strong competition from Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
For barley, SovEcon said average EXW prices rose by 100 roubles to 5,350 roubles per tonne in European Russia. "Prices rose both in the south, where the demand from exporters is big, and in the Central Black Soil areas on demand from local consumers," it said. Prices including delivery to Novorossiisk (CPT) were unchanged at around 7,300-7,400 roubles, although traders expect them to decline starting from this week, SovEcon said.
It said maize prices also remained unchanged in European Russia at 6,600 roubles per tonne. In dollar terms, the price of new harvest maize rose by $4 to $201 per tonne with some export deals in the pipeline, IKAR said. Crude sunoil prices declined slightly in dollar terms to $1,084 per tonne from $1,089, IKAR said. In rouble terms, average crude sunoil prices declined by 1,175 roubles to 35,500 roubles per tonne, SovEcon said.
"The Russian market has become a hostage to Ukrainian government policy, which is seriously examining setting an export duty for sunoil from the new year," SovEcon said. "And Ukrainian suppliers are aggressively lowering export prices to $1,070-1,080 (FOB Black Sea) from above $1,200 per tonne several weeks ago," it said, adding that the Russian sunoil marked is tightly linked to the Ukrainian.
Dollar-denominated sunseed prices continued to decline under the pressure of the continued harvesting campaign to $335 per tonne from $355, IKAR said. SovEcon said sunseed EXW prices lost 500-750 roubles per tonne in the Central and Volga federal districts, where many processors had lowered purchase prices by some 1,000 roubles to 9,500-10,500 roubles per tonne.
White sugar prices in southern Russia were largely stable in the region of 21,200 roubles, or $665 per tonne, IKAR said. "Despite abundant beet sugar supply, the shipping capacity of sugar refineries is very limited, so the demand of end customers is balanced by the limited supply and support prices against falling, it said.