Growth In Russian Wheat Export Surpasses Traders' Expectations

Russian exporters are ready to take every opportunity to export as much grain as possible. Konstantin Shtoiko, head of the Grain Department of the Moscow office of Tradigrain S.A., admitted that the market had not expected such large volumes of exports this year. There have not been such volumes in the past several years, and the hike in the exports surpassed traders' expectations. If the capacity of our ports were sufficient, several times more wheat could have been exported. This problem made Russian exporters look for a way out of this situation and think of ports that had been previously considered inefficient. According to the Analytical Department of the MTS Zerno company, wheat export via the Estonian port of Muuga started in November. The trade was opened by Kazakh companies, which exported 4,000 tons of grain via Estonia during one month. Andrei Chernyshev, head of the Analytical Department of MTS Zerno, believes that Russian grain traders will use this route, following the Kazakhs. He reckons that Muuga will allow Russian exporters together with Kazakhs to deliver about 70,000 tons of grain a month. At the same time, Shtoiko considers this opportunity uninteresting: "Export via northern ports is quite limited, they cannot compete with Russian southern ports and Ukrainian ports. Only loading of large-capacity vessels makes sense in the north," the Izvestia newspaper wrote.