Trading starts again this week with wheat price increases

Profit-taking followed hopes that talks between Ukraine and Russia would yield results. At the beginning of this week, this once again turned out to be a vain hope. And that is reflected in wheat prices. Both Paris and Chicago immediately rose again.

Wheat markets remain volatile

Although the mood in the grain market calmed down for a while last week, the nervousness remained. And it would not take much to get the prices moving again. For instance, if Egypt asks the market whether there are other suppliers than Ukraine and Russia, the market is immediately thrown into turmoil again. That while the country says it has supplies for at least 3 to 4 months.

Wheat markets not limited to Ukraine

Although the focus is on Ukrainian and Russian wheat there are other major wheat producers in the world that have not sold out. The European Union still has a lot of wheat to sell. Plus, wheat from Russia is still entering the world market. In the week of March 11 to 17, the Russians exported about 460,000 tonnes of wheat. Most of which went to Turkey, Egypt and Kazakhstan.

Russian wheat exports higher than early March

The export volume of Russian wheat is also somewhat greater than at the beginning of March. This has partly ensured that the indicator prices on exports do not fall further. For the week from 23 to 29 March, the price indications are fractionally higher than in the previous week. The direct consequence of this is that the decrease in export duties has come to a stop.

For the new week, the Russian export levies are converted at € 78.55 per tonne based on an indication price that has been set at € 294 per tonne. In the peak of mid-January, these prices were slightly above €300 per tonne. Then the prices dropped. For Europe, that effect was dampened by a depreciation of the euro from $1.14 to $1.10 over the past week.