Russia's maize (corn) export prices rose last week as it picked up demand from rival supplier Ukraine, where political turmoil has held up new deals, Russian analytical firm SovEcon said in a note on Monday. Former Soviet republic Ukraine, which is expected to be the world's second largest grain exporter in 2013/14 behind the United States, says it needs $35 billion to get through 2014 and 2015, due to its protracted political crisis.
Its president Viktor Yanukovich, ousted after bloody street protests in which police shot demonstrators, is wanted on an arrest warrant for mass murder. Ukrainian steel, grain and other commodity export deals have faltered as violence in Kiev triggered fears of port closures and defaults, driving up risk premiums on prices for future shipments, traders said last week.
"Continuing difficulties in Ukraine support Russian exporters," SovEcon said, adding farmers were hesitant about a further weakening in Ukraine's currency. "Domestic (Ukrainian) farmers are not in a rush to sell their grain," it said.
Russia's maize prices rose at least $5 compared with a week earlier to $222-$225 per tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis in deep-water ports last week. The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) pegged them at $218 a tonne, up $3. Russia exported 18.3 million tonnes of grain since the start of this 2013/14 marketing year on July 1 until February 19, compared to 13.7 million tonnes for the same period a year ago, according to the Agriculture ministry.
The figure included 13.8 million tonnes of wheat, 2.0 million tonnes of barley and 2.3 million tonnes of maize (corn), it added. Russia is able to export about 1 million tonnes more of maize till the end of the season, a Moscow-based trader said. Russia's prices for wheat with 12.5 percent protein content were up $3 at $279 a tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis in the Black Sea last week compared with a week earlier, IKAR said. Prices in the Azov Sea, where shipping resumed after ice broke up, were up $2 at $244 per tonne for the same protein content, it added.
Since the start of February the country exported 714,000 tonnes of grain, including 531,000 tonnes of wheat, 9,000 tonnes of barley and 168,000 tonnes of maize. Russian grain stocks at farms and procurement and processing companies, excluding small farms, were up 12 percent from a year earlier to 25.3 million tonnes as of February 1, the ministry said, citing data from statistics service Rosstat.
Sunflower seed prices rose, adding 225 roubles to 11,100 roubles ($310) a tonne at the end of last week, SovEcon said in a note. IKAR quoted its sunflower seed price index at 11,400 roubles per tonne, up 255 roubles. Export prices for sunflower oil rose $20 to $850-860 a tonne on an FOB basis in the Black Sea, according to SovEcon. The white sugar price index in Russia's South rose 1,100 roubles to at 25,300 roubles per tonne last week, IKAR added.
Russia has produced 4.38 million tonnes of beet sugar from last year's harvest, down 7.8 percent year-on-year, according to the Agriculture ministry. The country imported 160,000 tonnes of raw sugar since the start of 2014 and until February 16, up from 86,700 tonnes for the same period a year ago, the ministry said.
