Competition with France, mild winter press Russian wheat down

• Egypt, traditionally the second largest buyer of Russian wheat after Turkey, purchased 180,000 tonnes of French wheat in a state tender on Jan. 30.
• Russian wheat with 12.5% protein content, loaded from Black Sea ports and intended for delivery in February.
• Weather remains good for the 2020, crop with healthy amount of precipitation in most regions producing winter wheat.

MOSCOW: Export prices of Russian wheat fell last week for the second consecutive week as competition with other major wheat exporters has intensified and mild Russian winter weather favoured sowings, analysts said on Monday.

Egypt, traditionally the second largest buyer of Russian wheat after Turkey, purchased 180,000 tonnes of French wheat in a state tender on Jan. 30.

Russian wheat with 12.5% protein content, loaded from Black Sea ports and intended for delivery in February, fell by $4.5 to $226 per tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis at the end of last week, SovEcon said. Barley rose by $1 to $192 per tonne.

IKAR, another agricultural consultancy in Moscow, pegged wheat at $223 per tonne, down $3.

Russia, the world's biggest wheat exporter, said last week that Algeria, France's main export market, had provisionally approved tests of Russian wheat but European traders played down the announcement as Algeria is yet to change its tender specifications.

Russia exported 26.1 million tonnes of grain, including 22.5 million tonnes of wheat, between the start of the 2019/20 season on July 1 and Feb. 6, SovEcon said, citing customs data. Total grain exports fell 19% from a year earlier. To see SovEcon's February export estimate.

Weather remains good for the 2020, crop with healthy amount of precipitation in most regions producing winter wheat, SovEcon said.

A cold snap expected in the southern part of the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions, major prod/ucers of wheat, this week but in general temperatures in the country remain far from crop-threatening level, it said.