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  • Russian production is on track to be at least 7m tonnes, which is 10% above the previous record.
  • There will be a substantial production surplus within Russia of at least 1.1m tonnes.
  • Russia will become a significant whites exporter, from being a large scale importer just three years ago.

Large Production Surplus – Export Pace Increasing 

  • As we have highlighted before, Russia will have the availability to export a significant volume of white sugar over the next year. 
  • The monthly export pace in Russia has started to increase with monthly exports of over 50k tonnes per month. 

Russian Export Pace Increasing 

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  • However, we think that due to logistics Russia will struggle to export more than 800k tonnes. 
  • Inland railway freight is slow and expensive whilst ports lack the infrastructure to efficiently handle large shipments. 
  • See how this compares to previous years and the impact on stocks via our new interactive data section on Czapp.
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  • We now forecast Russia will produce 7m tonnes of sugar during the 19/20 campaign, 1.1m tonnes above consumption. 
  • This is 0.6m tonnes higher than our previous forecast and a record for Russia by over 10%. 

Russian Production Setting New High 

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  • As of mid-October, production has crossed 3m tonnes, 0.3m tonnes more than last year (10%). 
  • Yet the harvested area to date is 12% below at the same time in 2018. 
  • This is because the average beet yield (44.3 t/ha) is 25% higher than the last season. 
  • However, we estimate that sugar yields will only increase by 18% compared to 2018. 
  • This is because sugar content was below average during the beet testing. 

Sugar Yield Also a Record 

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Why Have Beet Yields Been Better Than Expected? 

  • One factor that led to the increase in beet yield was that beet plantings per ha increased by 6%.

Russian Beet Population 

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  • The weather and soil has been slightly drier than usual, which has been perfect for harvesting conditions. 
  • However, it was not so dry that the beet’s growth was impacted that poorly. 
  • We think that there has been significant investment in harvesting and processing in an effort to increase yields and reduce costs to make Russia more competitive in the world market.