MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) — Russian wheat prices fell last week as the new crop, expected to be the largest in Russia’s post-Soviet history, began to hit the market, analysts said July 11.
Russia, a major global wheat exporter to North Africa and the Middle East, may harvest up to 110 million tonnes of grain this year, according to the agriculture ministry, up two million tonnes from the record crop of 2008.
SovEcon, a leading agriculture consultancy in Russia, has a similar forecast, pegging the crop at 108.8 million tonnes, up from previously expected 106.9 million tonnes, it said July 11.
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Its estimate for the wheat crop was upgraded to 66.1 million tonnes from 64.4 million tonnes, it added.
Black Sea prices for Russian wheat with 12.5 percent protein content and supply in July were at US$165 a tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis on July 8, down $7 from a week earlier, Russian agricultural consultancy IKAR said.
“The reason for the fall is quite well-known, it is the huge harvest,” said Dmitry Rylko, the head of IKAR. The decline in prices is still, however, limited by concern over the quality of the new crop, which could be hit by rains in June, he added.
Russian farmers have already harvested 11.2 million tonnes of grain from 5.5 percent of the area and yields are so far higher than a year ago.
The country increased grain exports by 11 percent in the 2015-16 marketing year, which ended on June 30, to 33.9 million tonnes, including 24.6 million tonnes of wheat, 4.7 million tonnes of corn and 4.2 million tonnes of barley.
