

(Posted on 03/09/18)
Russian agriculture holding company Steppe plans to ramp up grain exports sharply this season, part of its bid to become one of top five traders of Russian grain by 2020, the company said in a statement.
Steppe, part of Russian business conglomerate Sistema , will also seek to join the supplier list of Egypt’s state-run General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC).
Egypt is the world’s top wheat importer and the largest buyer of Russian wheat. Russia itself is one of the world’s largest wheat exporters, though it faces a fall in its grain crop this year after a record harvest in 2017
Steppe, which harvested a record grain crop of 1.4 million tonnes in 2017, produces grain, dairy, fruit and vegetables on 380,000 hectares in Russia’s south. Sistema has previously said it could take the company public in 2020.
It exported 457,000 tonnes of grain, including 60,000 tonnes it purchased from other producers, in the 2017/18 marketing season which ended on June 30. Russia exported 52 million tonnes of grain in that season.
It plans to ramp up exports to 2.1 million tonnes of grain in the current 2018/19 season, including 1.4 million tonnes of other companies’ crops and 700,000 tonnes of its own production, it said in the statement. Exports will be via Steppe Trading SA, the branch it created in Switzerland in 2018.
Steppe is seeking to expand its export activities at a time when competition for access to grain shipping infrastructure is high, with Russia’s ports busy with the new harvest after running at maximum capacity during the 2017 record crop.
To address this, the company has established a relationship with Novorossiysk Grain Terminal, co-owned by Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port, and another terminal – KSK, it said in its statement.
Russia’s Alfa bank is helping it to finance grain operations, it added.
A first half year profit of almost $19bn has been announced by Glencore, partly driven by the company... Read more
Swiss technology group Bühler and Jordanian Al-Hazaa Investment Group have celebrated the opening... Read more
The first solar panels have started being installed this week at BHP’s massive solar farm at Leinster... Read more
China’s Wuxi Boton has announced the world's first carbon neutral conveyor belts for delivery... Read more
Ecobat, the global leader in battery recycling, and Trafigura, a leading global supplier of commodities... Read more
The National Grain and Feed Association in the USA (NGFA) is partnering with the Grain Elevator and... Read more
A new guide to support industry and organisations to engage with First Nations communities across Australia... Read more
Rio Tinto has delivered first ore from the Gudai-Darri iron ore mine as the company brings online its... Read more
British Steel has been given planning approval for a £26 million upgrade to its Special Profiles... Read more
Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd, a market leader in the global commodities industry, released its half year... Read more