Main exporters take half of Russia's wheat, barley, corn quota

The Russian government has distributed its wheat, barley and corn quotas among existing exporters to cover the February 15-June 30 period, with main exporters taking around half of the quota that's been released, an official notice showed late Tuesday.

The biggest share goes to Rif, the parent coming of the trading house GTCS.

The export quota for wheat was confirmed at 8 million mt and the allocation was calculated based on the exporter's performance during the December 1, 2020 through November 30, 2021 period.

As such, the proportion of trade managed by Rif amounted to 20% of total wheat exports through that period, or the equivalent of 1.6 million mt.

The second biggest quota was given to Demetra Trading, also known as Mirogroup, with 950,760 mt, followed by Aston (768,393 mt), Viterra (658,100 mt), and OZK trading - representing the export trading company Grainexport - with 550,892 mt.

Collectively, those companies have claimed half of the total 8 million mt quota.

In terms of corn and barley, the quota was set at 3 million mt, and the biggest share of it was also divided between the main exporters captured under the wheat complex.

Thus Rif took 674,700 mt, Demetra trading was awarded 399,834 mt, while 260,000 mt was allocated to Aston.

Following that, Viterra, (276,733 mt), Cargill (140,000 mt) and Louis Dreyfus (112,623 mt) completed the top six and captured 60% of the total quota.

The full list of the companies that have been awarded the export quotas was published on the Russian government website and can be found here.

Starting from February 15, grain exports from Russia can only be undertaken by the companies that have received the quotas.

Any exports outside of the quota will be subject to an additional tax at 50% of the custom’s costs, but not less than €100/mt.

Meanwhile, all the grain exports within the quota remain subject to a floating tax regime, which is updated on a weekly basis and currently is set at $93.20/mt for wheat, $73.30/mt for barley and $52.70/mt for corn.

The Russian agriculture ministry is projecting grain exports in the 2021/22 marketing year in the range of 45-48 million mt, including around 37 million mt of wheat.

Wheat exports have currently reached 23.9 million mt, a 21% drop compared to last year, but the data excludes shipments to Iran.

The destination is believed to be one of the leading markets for Russian wheat in the 2021/22 marketing year.