March 2, 2010

Russian grain prices were largely unchanged or slightly down last week on the lack of market moving news, analysts said on Monday (Mar 1).

Ordinary milling wheat with 11.5% protein and bug damage of 1% price stayed at around US$170, with bug damage of over 1% but less than 2% at US$165, both FOB Black Sea, the Institute for Agricultural Studies (IKAR) said.

Feed barley values are estimated at US$130-US$135 per tonne, it said.

SovEcon agricultural market analysts said CPT bid price for fourth-grade (ordinary) wheat was unchanged last week at RUB4,700-4,900 (US$156.7-US$163.4) per tonne in Novorossiisk.

Prices in shallow water ports declined slightly to RUB4,100-4,300 (US$136.6-US$143.3) from RUB4,200-4,300 (US$139.9-US$143.3) a week ago.

Most domestic prices lost RUB50 (US$1.7) per tonne on average, only feed wheat declined by RUB100 (US$3.3) to 3,025, SovEcon said.

Russia's grain exports between the start of the 2009-10 crop year and the middle of February are estimated at 13.7 million tonnes, down from 14.2 million a year ago, IKAR said. This included 11.6 million tonnes of wheat (12.1 million a year ago) and 1.7 million tonnes of barley (1.5 million at the same date last year).

SovEcon said it did not expect a rapid start of massive sales of grain from the government inventories because of the current downward trend on the world market in spite of the dedication of over RUB5 billion (US$167 million) subsidy for grain exports to the state trader.

IKAR believes that the government is unlikely to start export sales of its supplies before May due to the necessity to elaborate additional formal procedures, it said.

Soy prices declined to US$572 per tonne from US$581, soyoil to US$849 from US$863, IKAR said.