Russian Wheat Export Costs Rise, Increased Shipments Buffer Domestic Price Drop

Russian wheat export prices rose last week amid a firmer Black Sea market, while increased grain shipments helped halt a decline in domestic prices, analysts said.

• Consultancy IKAR said that, by the end of last week, export prices for wheat with 12.5% protein content shipped from the Russian ports of Vysotsk and Ust-Luga were at $268 a metric ton free-on-board (FOB) for delivery late November–early December, up $2 from the previous week. 

• Most shipments are now being redirected to Baltic terminals because southern Russian ports are largely closed. Shipments via ports in the Azov-Black Sea basin came to almost a standstill from mid-August due to attacks on vessels and damage to terminals as Ukraine and Russia target each other's infrastructure amid their conflict.

• IKAR has raised its forecast for wheat exports in October to up to 3 million tons, from 2.5 million tons previously, based on the expansion of transhipment capacity and provided that favourable weather and logistics conditions persist.

• SovEcon forecasts wheat exports in October at 2.5 million tons, which is half last year’s figure of 5.1 million tons and, for the time being, lower than the September estimate of 2.6 million tons. The assessment is based on the fact that shipments from the Black Sea have come to a complete standstill due to the escalation of the situation last week, head of Sovecon Andrey Sizov said.

• "Nothing is being loaded in the Black Sea today, which may well even offset the growth expected in the north-western direction," he said, noting that the situation regarding grain transit through the Baltic states also holds the potential for uncertainty.

• Overall, from July to September 2026, wheat exports from Russia totalled 7 million tons, compared with 11.3 million tons a year earlier, according to analysts at Rusagrotrans.

• IKAR has revised down its estimate of Russian wheat’s export potential for the current season by 1.5 million tons to 42 million tons, and its forecast for grain exports by 2.2 million tons to 52.8 million tons, noting that "under the so-called stress scenario", actual grain exports could turn out to be only around 35 million tons.

• More Russian data released by SovEcon and IKAR:  

 (Reuters)