Russia's grain exports in April dropped to 0.48 million tonnes from 0.77 million tonnes in March, mostly due to a decline in wheat shipments.
However, high world prices are likely to support Russia's wheat exports in May-June at 0.45-0.55 million tonnes monthly. Wheat exports in April are estimated to have dropped to 420,000 tonnes from 658,800 tonnes in March.
This is the lowest monthly shipment this season. In addition, April shipments were lower than a year ago for the first tigypt remained the major buyer of Russian wheat with purchase of 142,000 tonnes. Bangladesh with imports of some 85,000 tonnes were the second.
These two importers accounted for nearly a half of Russian wheat exports in April. The drop in April shipments reflected firm domestic prices in March, which resulted from reduced supplies. Slipping domestic prices in April and May coupled with solid gains in world prices seem to encourage export demand for wheat.
But reduced domestic supplies, particularly in the Southern regions close to the Above and Black sea ports, are likely to constrain an increase in exports at 450,000-550,000 tonnes in May-June.
Despite a serious slowdown in April, SovEcon's forecast for Russia's wheat exports in 2005/06 remains unchanged at 10.8 million tonnes (including wheat flour in grain equivalent); compared with 7.9 million tonnes last season.
This will be the second high outcome since 2002/03 when Russia exported 14.6 million tonnes.
In April, Russia's barley deliveries continued to decline for the third month in a row dropping to some 65,000 tonnes.
Saudi Arabia, which purchased 32,000 tonnes, accounted for a half of barley exports this month. Despite a certain decline in domestic prices and higher world prices, Russia's barley exports in May-June are seen to remain at a reduced level of 40,000-70,000 tonnes in May-June due to quite low domestic supplies.
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