It is planned that this January wheat supplies from the Russian Federation will amount to about 3.7 million tons. For the same period last year, this figure was 4.26 million tons.
This is lower than in December: then the Russian Federation exported 3.94 million tons of wheat, and if we take the grain export figure as a whole, it amounted to 5.1 million tons.
As a result, if we compare the values of last January and this January, we see a drop of 13%.
This decrease is largely due to unfavorable weather conditions, which currently make full grain transportation by sea impossible.
At the same time, there is hope that with the onset of spring the situation in this regard will improve.
The second factor that is currently slowing down grain supplies abroad is low world prices.
Currently, Russian wheat is cheap; over the past week, prices for it have decreased by 3%, while prices for American and European (French, German) wheat have been rising.
At the same time, this makes Russian products more competitive in price.
What will low supplies lead to in January?
Experts believe that this contributes to an increase in grain reserves in Russia and a possible increase in supply volumes in the coming months.
In general, wheat reserves in the Russian Federation today are at about 21.8 million tons. This is even less than a year earlier: then this figure was at the level of 22.1 million tons.
However, the volume of reserves across the country is not uniform.
For example, there are much more of them in the southern regions of the country, such as Krasnodar and Rostov. This is explained by the fact that these regions are extremely export-oriented, and are also one of the main producers of agricultural products in Russia.
The situation may be different in other regions. For example, in the North Caucasus District, reserves are 11% lower today, since the harvest there was less than a year ago.
Russia updates export records
Despite the drawdown in January, over the past six months the Russian Federation has set a record for the export of grains, legumes and flour. During this time, about 39 million tons of products were supplied abroad.
The previous record was set in the 2020-2021 season, when the volume of supplies was at 32.7 million tons. Compared to that period, the figure has now increased by 19%.
As independent expert Alexander Korbut notes, the main reason for this record is active exports at the beginning of the new season, when mainly leftovers from the previous harvest were exported.
By the way, in 2022 it was also a record year. According to experts, active exports should continue in the remaining months.
