* The boom in the price of wheat due to the drought in the former Soviet area makes speculators happy
* Romanian producers seize the opportunity to increase their profits * After domestically produced wheat has been exported for a high price abroad, the domestic market could be disturbed by cheap imports
The severe drought in the steppes of Russia and Kazakhstan caused the wheat production of the two countries to decrease by about 9 million tons.
Due to the state of things in the former Soviet area, the world"s wheat production, estimated at 661 million tons, was revised downwards compared to the previous month, by 7.4 million tons, and by 18.8 million tons compared to the output of 2009.
Under these circumstances, the price of grain on the international markets boomed, giving hedge funds and players in the sector the opportunity of making tens of millions of Euros in profits in just a few days.
* Price went up 10% in just four days
On the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where wheat is traded, the price of the ton of wheat rose about 20 dollars between July 5th and July 9th, from 207.3 dollars/ton, to 224.7 dollars/ ton. Major fluctuations also occurred on the Kansas City Board of Trade, where, in the same period, the ton of wheat gained 16.9 dollars.
In Paris, over the same period, the price of the ton of wheat increased by 6 Euros, from 167.9 Euros/ton, to 172.3 Euros/ton.
Basically the profit from the sale of 100 tons of wheat over the course of four days would have amounted to 2000 dollars.
Amid this instability, in the US alone, 514,000 tons of wheat were sold in the US alone between June 25th - July 1st. The amount of wheat exported by the US was 557,000 tons, with the main importers being Nigeria (127,000 tons) and South Korea (112,000 tons).
* The explanation
Dan Botanoiu, the executive manage
