- According to the State Consumer Service, at the beginning of February, winter crops in Ukraine were in good condition. The percentage of living plants was 91-99%, dead – 1-9%;
- According to the State Customs Service, as of February 9, since the beginning of MY 2021/22, Ukraine has exported 39.9 million tons of grain and leguminous crops, which is 10.1 million tons more than on the same date last season. Supplies of wheat amounted to 17.3 million tons (+4.2 million tons), barley – 5.5 million tons (+1.6 million tons), rye – 157.5 thousand tons (+155.8 thousand tons) , corn – 16.6 million tons (+4.4 million tons). In addition, 64.4 thousand tons of grain flour (including 63.3 thousand tons of wheat) were delivered abroad, which is 24.4 thousand tons less than the corresponding indicator of the previous season;
- The Maritime Administration of Ukraine has warned that from February 13 to February 19, 2022, certain areas of the Black and Azov Seas are blocked for military exercises of the Russian Navy. These areas block the recommended routes for ships to the seaports of Ukraine. Later it was reported that restrictions on the passage of ships in the Sea of Azov were lifted;
- According to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, duties on export deliveries of Russian wheat from February 16 will decrease from the previous 93.2 to 92.8 $/ton, while duties on barley will increase from 73.3 to 74.1 $/ton. At the same time, the export duty on corn supplies will remain at the level of the previous week – $52.7/ton. The established fees will be valid until February 22, 2022 inclusive;
- For 7 months of the current season, France supplied 5.32 million tons of wheat (flour and feed) to foreign markets. According to FranceAgriMer forecasts, by the end of the season, the volume of grain shipments outside the EU countries will amount to 9 million tons;
- Analysts at Stratégie Grains raised their forecast for EU wheat production in MY 2022/23 by 0.3 million compared to the preliminary estimate to 128 million tons, mainly due to an increase in indicators for France and Poland. The area under grain crops is estimated at the level of the current season – 21.7 million hectares;
- Experts from the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange have lowered the forecast for corn production in Argentina in 2021/22 MY to 51 million tons, which is 6 million less than their preliminary estimate. The downward adjustments were made due to the persistence of severe drought in the country, which critically hampered the development of grain crops;
- The Turkish State Grain Council TMO, in a tender on February 8, pre-purchased 325,000 tons of corn in 13 batches of 25,000 tons each for delivery to 11 different ports of the country at a price of $ 304.7-311.65 / ton C&F in the period 15 February – March 15 this year. At the previous tender in November, Turkey purchased 300,000 tons of corn;
- According to market operators, Jordan purchased 60,000 tons of barley from Cargill at a price of $301.25/ton C&F during a tender held on February 8, with supply July 1-15.
Despite the rise in wheat prices in spot sales in the US and European markets, Black Sea grain prices continued to decline last week on the back of reduced demand, expectations of problems with logistics by sea routes in the region and a general increase in security tensions.
According to ProAgro Group monitoring data, prices for wheat of all classes on the basis of primary elevators during the week decreased by an average of 300 UAH/ton, and in ports – by about 200 UAH/ton. At the same time, the price of export contracts for wheat with a protein content of 12.5% for delivery in February-March to FOB/Black Sea ports decreased by an average of only 1 $/ton over the past week, while feed lost about 3 $/ton.
Traders and exporters are lowering hryvnia wheat purchase prices on the domestic market due to uncertainty about future export volumes and the rapid collapse in external demand prices, which have already fallen by $10-15/ton and even more since the beginning of February. In the February report, USDA reduced the forecast for the export of Ukrainian wheat in the 2021/22 season (including flour and processed products) by 200 thousand tons to 24 million tons.
Despite the increase in the price of Ukrainian corn in the export direction – plus 3 $ / ton over the past week, domestic prices also sank under the influence of the wheat market: grain prices in ports fell by an average of 50 UAH / ton. At the same time, purchase prices for corn at domestic elevators mostly remained at the same level due to stable high demand. Also last week, barley fell by 50 UAH/ton in ports, but remained at the same price in primary elevators.
The price of the nearest contracts on FOB/Ukraine decreased by an average of $3/ton over the week. Last week, after a preliminary reduction in prices, which was recorded at the beginning of the month, the cost of supply of wheat flour producers increased by 100 UAH/ton and bran rose in price by 150 UAH/ton. This happened despite the reduction by processors of purchase prices for both food and feed wheat by an average of 200 UAH/ton.
z-14.02-eng
