"Sugar prices have started to decrease: Russia faced an oversupply of production and import with increasing demand."

After a rapid increase in sugar wholesale prices, it's now the time of "lean cows". Prices have started to decrease, but this decrease is happening slower than a few weeks ago.

According to data from Soyuzrossakhar as of September 16, 280 thousand hectares of sugar beets have been harvested in Russia (24% of the plan), which exceeds last year's figures by 6.4%. The sugar content is higher by 2% compared to last year, however, the yield is 23.5% lower. Based on this data, our previous estimate for sugar production this season is 6.4 million tons, including sugar from syrup and molasses.

Despite the acceleration of sugar exports, the volumes are still modest - about 50 thousand tons per month. Considering internal demand at 6 million tons, the total excess sugar is approximately 800 thousand tons, including 400 thousand tons of excess production, 200 thousand tons of extra stocks, and 200 thousand tons of imports from Belarus. Unfortunately, this excess won't be exported by the end of the season. However, exports could pick up, especially with high world sugar prices (which have begun to rise again) or a reduction in Russian prices.

Our climate monitoring in regions where beets are grown shows that the accumulated temperature in August is significantly higher than the average values for the last six years and the previous warmest season in 2018/2019. The only region where August 2024 was colder than usual is Altai Krai. Precipitation in September is almost absent, which is typical for this month. Belgorod and Voronezh regions show a significant decrease in normal precipitation by 50% and less compared to previous values.

The estimated cost of white sugar from raw materials is $903.02 per ton ($82.78 per kilogram).

According to Sugar.ru estimates, 11.1 thousand tons of Belarusian sugar were imported into Russia from September 1 to 19.

Since the beginning of September, the pace of Russian sugar exports by rail has increased to 30.9 thousand tons. After lifting the ban on exporting Russian sugar and raw materials beyond the Eurasian Economic Union, we see sugar supplies to other countries in Central Asia and Azerbaijan, but the volumes are still significantly lower than those to the Eurasian Economic Union.

Since the beginning of the month, the railway transit of Belarusian sugar amounted to 2.7 thousand tons.

So far, we have not observed the export of Russian raw materials as in the previous season (125 thousand tons). From the beginning of September, 8.4 thousand tons of raw materials have been sent in transit from Novorossiysk to Central Asia.

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You can find more detailed information on the sugar.ru website.