Egypt, Iran, Sudan receive most of Russia's January wheat exports: lineup

Egypt, Iran and Sudan will together receive two thirds of the 917,000 mt of wheat loaded from Russia's main port of Novorossiisk onto ships that arrived between Jan. 9 and Jan. 31, according to the most recent lineups for the port's three grain terminals.

The lineups produced by port agents Global Ocean Service Ltd. showed that Iran is due to receive 227,000 mt of wheat, Sudan will receive 205,000 mt and Egypt will get 189,000 mt.

They also include a 19,650 mt shipment for Cuba, which traders say will be the country's second Russian purchase this marketing year (July 2021-June 2022), after it bought 23,000 mt in October. One market source said the Caribbean island didn't take any wheat from Russia in the previous marketing year.

Novorossiisk has three main grains terminals, NKHP, NZT and KSK. The first two of these have a combined annual capacity of 13.6 million mt and are controlled by Demetra Holding, a grains business that's part of VTB, a state-controlled Russian bank. KSK is privately owned. In addition to its shipments from Novorossiisk, Russia also exports wheat through the neighboring deepsea ports of Kavkaz, Tuapse and Taman.

In its most recent report, the US Department of Agriculture estimated that Russian wheat exports for the 2021-22 marketing year would total 35 million mt, down from 38 million mt the previous year. The fall reflects a decline in the country's production to 76 million mt from 85 million mt, based USDA figures.