S&P Global Platts Analytics has cut its estimate for Russia’s wheat output in marketing year 2021-22 (July-June) to 80.2 million mt, against 83.8 million mt pegged earlier, due to a decline in the winter crop area.
Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat and a major producer of the staple food grain.
In the week to July 30, the Russian State Statistical Services reduced the country’s winter wheat area by 7.7% to 15.6 million hectares.
Platts Analytics has cut its estimate for Russian winter wheat production by 9% to 57.6 million mt.
However, it has increased its estimate for the country’s spring wheat production to 22.6 million mt, up 2.1 million mt.
“We maintained winter wheat yields on a regional (oblast) level unchanged, but due to uneven regional area changes average country level yield dropped 1% to 3.70 mt per hectare,” said Victoria Sinitsyna, grains analyst at Platts Analytics. Platts Analytics has estimated total wheat yield at 2.85 mt/hectare.
Major Russian agencies have also scaled down their projections due to lower sowing of winter wheat and anticipated poor yields.
Russian agricultural consultancy SovEcon recently reduced its estimate for the country’s wheat output in marketing year 2021-22 by 5.9 million mt to 76.4 million mt. Another Moscow-based consultancy IKAR also cut its forecast for Russia’s MY2021-22 wheat crop by 3 million mt to 78.5 million mt.
Harvest and exports
Russia has harvested 50.2 million mt of wheat from the start of the MY2021-22 until Aug. 3, compared with 53.4 million mt during the same period last year, the Russian agricultural ministry said in an Aug. 5 report.
Farmers have so far threshed crop from 14.7 million hectares against 14.5 million hectares last year, the report showed.
As of July 29, the country exported 1.7 million mt of wheat, 34% behind the last year’s pace, according to the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance.
Prices surge
Concerns about declining supply from the world’s largest exporter pushed up prices of Russian wheat.
The FOB price of Russia’s 12.5% protein wheat was at $271/mt on Aug. 5, up 14.3% from $237/mt a month ago, according to S&P Global Platts assessments.
A cut in the floating export duty have also led to a recovery in prices over the past weeks as a lower duty encourages outward shipments amid concerns of weak supplies, analysts said.
The wheat export tariff was left unchanged at $31.40/mt for the Aug. 4-10 period.
Source: Platts