MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian wheat prices rose last week as the rouble strengthened [RU/RUB] and as talks about extending the Black Sea deal allowing Ukrainian shipments continued, the IKAR agriculture consultancy said on Monday.

Prices for Russian wheat with 12.5% protein content and for supply from Black Sea ports in December were at $317.5 a tonne free on board (FOB) on Friday evening, up $5.5 from a week earlier, IKAR said in a note.

Russia’s grain exports at 1.0 million tonnes last week were unchanged from the previous week, another consultancy, Sovecon said, citing port data.

“There are a lot of complaints both from exporters and domestic consumers about the lack of railcars,” it said.

Farmers have already planted winter grains on 17.5 million hectares, compared with 18.2 million hectares around the same date a year ago, the consultancy said.

Overall weather conditions remain fine for development of the winter crops, Sovecon said, adding that rains in the southern regions would improve crop conditions in this key winter wheat-producing region.

The harvesting of the current sunflower seeds crop lags badly, Sovecon said. Only 64% of the area has been harvested by now, while typically it is above 90% at this time of the year, it added.

Other Russian data provided by Sovecon and IKAR:

Product: Price at the end Change from week

of last week: earlier

– Domestic 3rd class 12,825 rbls/t +50 rbls

wheat, European part ($212.9)

of Russia, excludes

delivery (Sovecon)

– Sunflower seeds 21,050 rbls/t +75 rbls

(Sovecon)

– Domestic sunflower 73,750 rbls/t -425 rbls

oil (Sovecon)

– Domestic soybeans 30,300 rbls/t +150 rbls

(Sovecon)

– Export sunflower $1,300/t -$50

oil (Sovecon)

– Export sunflower $1,250/t +$20

oil (IKAR)

– White sugar, $767.5/t +$4.7

Russia’s south

(IKAR)

Harvesting data provided by Sovecon as of Nov. 10:

All grains: Wheat Barley Corn Sunseeds

Crop, mln tonnes 152.4 105.0 24.4 7.8 11.6

Crop, as of same 122.5 78.1 18.8 13.0 15.1

date in 2021

Yield, 3.36 3.59 3.09 5.80 1.82

tonnes/hectare

Yield, as of same 2.74 2.81 2.39 5.39 1.59

date in 2021

Harvested area, 45.3 29.2 7.9 1.4 6.4

mln hectares

Harvested area, 44.8 27.8 7.9 2.4 9.5

as of same date

in 2021

* Russia’s agriculture ministry has yet to publish detailed harvesting data for the current season.

** The harvesting data is by bunker weight, i.e. before drying and cleaning of the crop.

($1 = 60.2500 roubles)

(Reporting by Olga Popova and Polina Devitt; Editing by Susan Fenton)