Cargill, Louis Dreyfus and Viterra suspend export activities in Russia

Global agribusiness giants Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) and Viterra are suspending their export activities in Russia.

“LDC will cease grain exports from Russia from 1 July as grain export challenges continue to increase in the country and is also assessing options for the transfer to new owners of its existing Russian business and grain assets,” the company said on 3 April.

LDC operates seven inland silos in Russia with a storage capacity of 900,000 tonnes and a grain export terminal on the Don River with access to the Sea of Azov, with an annual capacity of about 1M tonnes and 50,000 tonnes of storage in 10 vertical silos, World Grain wrote on 4 April. It also operated a riverside elevator in Volgograd enabling grain exports along the Volga River and down to the Caspian Sea.

On average, LDC exported 1.5M-3M tonnes/year of grains from Russia, with products sourced from Russia and Ukraine making up 2% of LDC’s group sales last year, World Grain said.

On 30 March, Glencore’s agriculture division Viterra also announced that it would not continue its origination and export programmes from Russia after 1 July.

“Following continued monitoring of the situation over the past year, Viterra has concluded that its activities in Russia no longer fit the long-term direction of the company,” a spokesperson told AgriCensus. “We are assessing options to transfer our business and assets in Russia to new owners.”

Viterra is the fourth largest Russian grain exporter, with 2.1M tonnes approved for export in the 16 February-30 June period this year, according to the AgriCensus report. The company owns a terminal in Rostov-on-Don and a 50% stake in a terminal in the port of Taman, while another 50% is owned by Demetra Holding, which is 45% owned by Russian state bank VTB.

On 29 March, World Grain reported that Cargill would stop elevating and handling Russian grain for export in July 2023 following the completion of the 2022/23 season. The company did not say if the decision to stop handling Russian grain meant it would sell any of its Russian assets. However, Cargill's shipping unit said it would continue to carry grain from the country’s ports, World Grain added.

ECUADOR: Leading Ecuadorian palm oil group Grupo Danec has signed a public commitment to zero deforestation and zero child labour, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) said on 15 February.

Ecuador had lost over 2M ha of tropical forest or 7.8% of its total surface area, in recent years, the RSPO said.

In addition, there were over 270,000 child labourers aged between five and 14 years, 7.1% of Ecuador’s child population, according to the country's Institute of Statistics and Census.

As of last year, 35% of Latin America’s total crude palm oil output had achieved RSPO certification, the report said.

EUROPE: Euronext rapeseed prices dropped below €450/tonne (US$488/ tonne) on 21 March, with May forward order prices down to €441.50/ tonne (US$479/tonne), August down to €444.50/ tonne (US$482/tonne) and November down to €449.25/tonne (US$487/ tonne), AgriCensus reported. It had been two years since Euronext rapeseed’s frontmonth contracts had traded at such a low level, AgriCensus wrote on 21 March.

Ample stocks, high imports, and a good crop expected in Australia had put pressure on rapeseed and rapeseed oil prices in Europe in recent months.

Prices had fallen by almost 60% from the highs in mid2022 when the Ukraine war sparked supply concerns.