Russia awards RIF, Aston, Demetra, UGC half of wheat export quotas to June 30

Russia's agriculture ministry released its closely watched grains export allocations late Feb. 8, setting limits on the volumes that each of the country's wheat exporters can ship out between Feb. 15 and the end of the marketing year on June 30.

The ministry has set the export allocations based on each company's export share in the previous year, with RIF and its trading arm GTCS receiving 20% of the total allocation. The second largest allocation went to Aston at 12%, followed by Demetra Trading, which is majority owned by state controlled bank VTB. United Grain Co., which is also government controlled, has the fourth largest allocation.

Late in 2021, the government put an 8 million mt cap on wheat exports over a four-and-a-half month period, with an additional 3 million mt allowed for other grains. That is a sharp reduction from the same period of 2021, when the limit for all grains was 17.5 million mt.

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 country exports around half of its total production.

Russia's export quotas are part of the country's move to tighten control over the sector, following fear of domestic inflation, and comes alongside the government's duty on exports, which is recalculated weekly and stand at $93.20/mt for the Feb. 9-15 period, equivalent to almost a third of the total FOB price.

Source: 2020-21 total export numbers from consultancy Rusagrotrans.