Wheat export prices in Russia fell for the fifth consecutive week last week due to the decline in the lead market in Chicago and the weak exchange rate of the ruble.
Fear of the coronavirus' impact on the global economy brought the ruble against the dollar to its weakest level since early 2019 and caused wheat prices in Chicago to fall.
Russian wheat with a protein content of 12.5%, which was loaded into ports on the Black Sea, dropped by $ 4 to $ 214 per ton FOB at the end of last week, the agricultural consultancy SovEcon said. Barley dropped $ 5 to $ 185 a ton.
The Russian market remains under pressure due to strong competition with other countries of origin. A sharp weakening of the ruble currency helps exporters cut prices, according to SovEcon.
Another agricultural consultancy based in Moscow, IKAR, put the export price of wheat at $ 213 a ton.
Russia exported 28.6 million tons of grain in the current 2019/20 season from 1 July 19 to 27 February 20, 18% less than a year earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture said, citing customs data.The Russian customs service revised and updated its data for the previous months last week. As a result, SovEcon increased its February export estimate by 500,000 tonnes a week earlier. In addition, it was informed that weekly customs data would no longer be used for the monthly estimates since there are no data on deliveries to Iran.
SovEcon announced that it had lowered its forecast for Russian grain exports 2019/20 by 300,000 tonnes to 41.2 million tonnes due to the weak export pace. The estimate for wheat has been reduced from 100,000 tons to 32.1 million tons.
The conditions for the new wheat harvest remain good in warm weather and healthy rainfall, according to SovEcon. In the coming weeks, drier weather than normal is expected in the southern regions of Russia.
A sharp weakening of the ruble has traditionally caused some farmers to stop selling to exporters, but this time they are probably still willing to sell their remaining stocks because they need funds for summer grain sowing, SovEcon said.
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