MOSCOW: Russian wheat export prices rose amid difficult weather conditions for the new crop in the south of the country, as well as higher prices on global markets, analysts said.

The price of 12.5% protein Russian wheat scheduled for free-on-board (FOB) delivery in late May-early June was $212 a metric ton, up from $208 a ton the previous week.

The Sovecon agriculture consultancy pegged the same class of wheat at $213-216 a ton, up from $210 to $212 a ton FOB. “If the Russian South gets rain, we expect to see at least a correction in Paris and Chicago shortly, which could be quite steep,” Sovecon wrote in the weekly note.

Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter. The Friday weather models showed precipitation in around a week covering a big part of Russia’s south, they said.

“Cooler weather with rain could be very helpful to the new crop in the South which, despite challenging weather recently, doesn’t look like a poor one.”

Roman Vilfand, scientific head of the Russian Hydrometeorological Centre, said at a news conference on Friday that conditions for crops in Russia’s Southern and North Caucasus federal districts were satisfactory but unfavourable in some areas, calling the situation with crops in the country “generally normal”.

Russia saw its overseas supplies decline to 0.99 million tons of grain last week from 1.25 million tons the previous week. Exports included 1.07 million tons of wheat, the same as a week earlier, Sovecon wrote, citing port data.

Sovecon estimates wheat exports in April at a record-high of 4.6 million metric tons, compared with 4.4 million tons a year ago.

As of April 19, farmers had seeded 3.3 million hectares of grains compared to 3.8 million hectares in the same period in 2023.

That included 0.6 million hectares of spring wheat, compared to 1.0 million last year, Sovecon wrote.