Russia is finishing its imported raw sugar refining season and is gradually switching to processing domestic sugar beets, the Russian Sugar Producers Union industry lobby said on Tuesday. The number of refineries, which are processing beets in the south of the country rose to nine this week from seven last week, it said in a statement. Two more refineries have started stockpiling beets.
The refineries produced 14,100 tonnes of raw sugar from 74,400 tonnes of sugar beets processed so far, compared with 5,200 by the end of last week. By this time last year, the sugar beet harvesting campaign was just starting. In a separate statement, the union said that the country was winding up refining from imported raws. It said only two refineries were processing raws this week, compared with five by August 1.
Russia had refined 2.28 million tonnes of white sugar from raws by August 8, up from 1.89 million a year ago. The union has said it does not expect large import volumes from August. It expected Russia to import around 2.24 million tonnes of raw sugar this year, up 150,000 tonnes from 2010. However, customs data showed on Monday that the country had imported 2.36 million tonnes of raw sugar in January-June this year. The union was not immediately available for comment.
Russia raised its import tariff on raw sugar to $85 per tonne in July from $50 and to $140 per tonne from August when the domestic sugar refining season started. The tariff will remain unchanged in September, according to a statement on the web site of the executive commission of the customs union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The statement says that the average New York sugar price, to which the tariff is pegged, was $649.72 per tonne in July, which corresponds to a tariff rate of $140 per tonne. Russia is the world's third-largest sugar buyer and consumes 5.5 million tonnes of white sugar a year. It refines more than half this volume from domestic beets and the remainder from imported raws.